


Guns Hidden Under Our Petticoats

by Jillypups



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bronn and the Blackwater Five, Bronnaery, CAT AND ROBB ARE ALIVE YAY, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, I don't ever know what to say, I tag like a rabid dog on meth, Margaery and The Pink Parlour, Outlaws and Madams, Podrya, Proudwing is based on Bisbee AZ, Shit, Stannis founded a town, THE SECONDARY COUPLES IN THIS ARE PRETTY HARDCORE BACKGROUND I won't lie, Wild West AU, but now I am leaving spoilers in here, but they're there! - Freeform, jesus christ selyse, ranching accident, sansan, sorry Ned, there's a lot of whorehouse talk, they're minerals not rocks, ummm - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2019-10-19 15:47:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17604242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/pseuds/Jillypups
Summary: So here's a thing!Bronn, the leader of a gang of outlaws, sees a woman fleeing the town of Proudwing, AZ on horseback. Curious and hoping for another quick robbery, he follows her.He'll probably end up regretting it.Margaery has certainly never been a damsel in distress before, but today she's feeling like it. Fleeing town for her life, which was almost taken by her arch rival, she tries to collect herself in a high desert stream.And then she's interrupted.Picset





	1. Chapter 1

“Look down there,” Beric says as they crest the top of a tall, grassy heap of earth, too small to be a mountain and too big to be just a hill. “Christ almighty, it’s good to see civilization again.”

They’re peering down into the deep sluice of a narrow valley, filled with the buildings and sidewinder streets of Proudwing, Arizona. A veritable sight for sore eyes, it’s a winding, snaking town, following the curves provided by the hills that surround it all sides. By the good grace of the devil himself old Stannis Baratheon founded the place in high desert instead of low, and thusly this two-horse town ain’t nearly as hot as it gets over in Tucson during the summer.

“I’ll say,” Sigorn says. “Just think of all the amenities a man has at his hands in town.”

“Somethin’ to eat that ain’t goddamn stale,” Tormund says.

“Whiskey,” snarls Sandor as he peers into his half empty canteen with one eye squinted shut. “Lots and lots of whiskey.”

“I wouldn’t say no to either of them things,” Sigorn says as he turns in his saddle. “Well, boss, what about you? What are you fixin’ to dive into when we get to Proudwing?”

“ _Women,_ ” Bronn says with relish and a grin. “A bunch of ‘em, naked as blue jays and just as feisty.”

They all groan in commiseration, even afflicted Tormund, as misery does have a predilection for company. Bronn himself can practically smell the musky perfume between a woman’s legs, it’s been that long since he’s scratched that particularly agonizing itch.

Though admittedly, he’s lucky he doesn’t have the _very_ agonizing itch Tormund got from the last whorehouse they hit.

Talk soon turns to what order they intend to glut themselves on all those aforementioned amenities, but Bronn tunes them out as they amble down the steep incline of shrubby acacia and grasses dead from a recent frost. That last stagecoach they robbed had drivers with more than a little gumption; they fought back so hard one of them managed to pull the bandana off Sandor’s face before the latter man knocked him from his perch.

 _Of course it was the most memorable one of us that old bastard got a glimpse of,_ Bronn thinks with scowl _._

Time was a-ticking and so instead of drawing out the catastrophe with a few murders, they decided to turn tail and run, but now Bronn wonders if they had the right of it.

His dark brood fades somewhat when his curiosity is piqued by a sudden streak of movement shooting up the next hill over like a fallen star hell bent on getting back to the sky. A good hard squint tells him it’s a rider on a horse, and a lifetime of experience on horseback tells him it’s no confident rider, neither.

Bronn nods his head towards the rapidly retreating figures.

“Sigorn, pass me that old spyglass of yours,” he says, leaning towards the other man when he outstretches his hand to do as Bronn says.

“Whatcha after, boss?”

Bronn hums noncommittedly as he brings the spyglass to his right eye while shutting his left, panning the thing slowly until he catches the figure.

“Well, well, well,” he mutters with a slow grin.

“What, what is it? It ain’t the sheriff or nothin’, is it?” Tormund says.

He’s a big guy, but the fear of hanging can overcome any man, no matter the size of his britches.

“No, far from it,” Bronn says.

A flag of brown ringlets and the flash of dark green dress. Pale skin and the cream color of stockings underneath her windswept skirts. Looks like his wish came true. But it’s not just a woman. She’s a _lady,_ by all accounts. Fancy. Refined. Elegant.

Most importantly: Rich.

He hands the spyglass back to its rightful owner and twitches his horse’s reins with a cluck of his tongue as he turns his horse left. Gone is the view of Proudwing and here is the view of the direction from which they more or less just came.

“Christ almighty, boss,” Beric whines. “We are _this_ close to whores and roast mutton, and enough whiskey to turn Sandor into less of a mean sonuvabitch. Don’t tell me we’re going on a wild goose chase.”

“I wouldn’t mind paying a visit to the doc, either, boss,” Tormund says as he shifts in his saddle.

“You can get your Protargol in a hot minute,” Bronn says as he kicks his horse into a lope, ignoring the collective belly-aching behind him as his men grudgingly follow him. “Right now, we got a teeny-tiny little job to do.”

 

“Go on then, you old thing,” she says to the farm horse after sliding off its back with an unladylike grunt. “Eat your heart out. You earned it.”

She gives the horse a gentle pat and makes a mental note to return the creature to old Mr. Roddrick back at the general store. Horse thievery is not something she’d like to hang for, not that he would notice the missing beast, half-blind as the shopkeeper is. She watches the horse amble off down a ways, nipping the grass as it goes, and once she’s satisfied that it’s as exhausted from their exodus as she is, she gets back to fuming.

Because Margaery Tyrell is madder than a wet hen, so mad that not even the bright winter sunshine and fat fluffy clouds overhead can temper her mood. Not even a fistful of Lincoln skins could cheer her up, and she has long maintained that the fastest way to a woman’s heart is money. The fastest to a man’s, on the other hand, is typically through the aforementioned woman’s bloomers, but men are the last thing she wants to think about now, except for one particular devil she can’t help but dwell on.

She stands on the bank of a rocky old wash without so much as a shoe on her torn-stockinged feet, hands on her hips, dirt in her hair, and, if she’s not mistaken – and she rarely is – mud in her mouth. Unceremoniously she spits the taste out on the creek bank’s pebbles and stones. It lands with a wet splat on a pale grey rock, and she is not surprised to see there are flecks of red with the mud and saliva.

Getting pistol-whipped in the face has a tendency to leave a lasting impression.

Margaery sighs and steps carefully out into the wide wash without a single hoot to give over her once-glorious, now-ruined emerald dress getting wet.  The mountain runoff water is bracingly cold, but her aching muscles go _ahhhh_ so loud she can almost hear them, she is that saddle sore. She’s never been one for equestrian endeavors, having been carted around in granny’s trap ever since she was in swaddling clothes, and the madcap galloping dash she just took to high tail it out of her lifelong home was probably the most harrowing, bone-jarring ride of her life.

So, it’s with relative ease that she wades out into the chilly water, sinking down to her knees in the shallows. One thing granny always told her is that a woman can’t think straight if she’s dirty or has a damn fool man to worry about, and since Margaery can’t help her predicament with the latter, she’s hellbent on fixing the former. But when she cups the water in her hands and splashes and rubs her face, she sucks in a breath and flinches at the flare of pain on her left cheek, winces behind her closed eyelids.

She gingerly dabs the corner of her mouth with a fingertip, feeling the cut there where the gun’s hammer snagged her.

“That lily-livered scoundrel sure can hit,” she mutters to the wind and the water and the wide endless sky. “Well,” she corrects with a sigh as she drops her hands under the water to scrub them. “At least, he sure can hit _women._ ”

“Whoever this _he_ is should check his manners,” a deep dark voice says from behind her. “Seein’ as hittin’ a lady ain’t nothing to be proud of.”

Margaery freezes. The late day sun casts the shadows of four, no, five men on horseback onto the surface of the water, so she doesn’t even bother turning around yet. Nothing good happens after midnight and nothing particularly pleasant happens to a woman when she’s up to her neck in strange men. _And I don’t even have any shoes to throw at them._

 _Another_ thing granny always told her was a woman’s always got to think on her feet even when she’s on her back, so while there is a very real desire to scream bloody murder right now, she resists the temptation (unlike so many _other_ vices she enjoys). Instead she shakes back her damp hair – her ringlets about as put together as a dang pig’s tail after that ride, she reckons – and rises as regally to her feet as she can while water-logged and still filthy. Turns with a little wobble to face these intruders with her hands on her hips the way Mrs. Stark does when she’s hollering at her husband across the main street.

She squints up at the lot of them, buttery warm sunshine dazzling her vision so she can hardly make out any identifying features.

“Well, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” the man in the middle murmurs around a corn husk cigarette, and even with his face shadowed from the brim of his hat, she can just make out a roguish grin that shapes his words. “What’s a little lady like you doin’ in a creek out in the middle of nowhere?”

“I’m no lady,” she says with the lift of her chin.

“If it walks like a duck,” one man chuckles.

“Quack,” laughs another.

“Oh yeah? Then what are you?” one of his cronies asks.

“Maybe she’s one of them whatcha-ma-call-its,” another man says. “Them water girls.”

“A mermaid, you idiot,” chuckles the man with the cigarette.

He leans forward in his saddle, forearm to the pommel with the reins dangling from his gloved fingers. Takes the cigarette from his mouth and peers at it before flicking it expertly into the water downstream. He looks back at her.

“You a mermaid, little Miss Not-a-lady?”

Smoke and hot cocoa to his voice, leather and sweat to his smell, she reckons. And that unmistakable aura of a man who is confident in every single thing he does. Margaery knows men. She can sniff that trait out from a mile away, let alone a few feet. Plus, she’s downwind.

 She gathers up her sodden skirts, hefting the doubly-heavy fabric as she slowly, only slightly clumsily, wades back towards the sandy, gritty bank, maintaining the shadow eye contact with the man in the middle, the one in the black vest. Because confidence was never a staple they ran out of at Lady Olenna’s Pink Parlour, even when she took over the reins the morning after Olenna was buried, and she’ll be damned if she’s going to run short on it now.

“Not a mermaid or a ‘Miss,’ either, you mudsill. I’m a _madam_. So if you think you and your boys can pull a fast one on me, you’ll be sorely mistaken.”

 

There is a brief stretch of silence, or rather, the brief stretch of wordlessness as Bronn and his gang take turns looking at each other in bewilderment. Bronn himself is equal parts confusion and amusement at such a tall tale from such a beauty. Though in his experience he’s always found the homelier girls to be better at honesty. The pretty ones always have a fib or two ready and waiting. So perhaps his surprise in unfounded, here.

“Listen here, ma’am,” he says, turning back to tiny little stack of indignation in wet skirts. “You can’t be more’n 20, 21 years young, there just ain’t enough years on you for you to have climbed the ranks, if you catch my meaning.”

Little Miss Madam over there sniffs and drops her skirts in order to fold her arms over her bosom, which, Bronn cannot help but notice, is more than sufficient to fill a man’s hands. He clears his throat and lifts his eyes. To the credit of this alleged madamhood, she does not seem the least bit surprised _or_ offended.

“I didn’t ‘climb the ranks’ by knocking boots with a bunch of blowhards like you, thank you _very_ much, I happen to have inherited the building and position from my dear old granny.”

“You wanna show us that position?” Tormund asks hopefully.

“I’m sure there’s more than just one,” Sandor gruffs.

The girl – woman, Bronn corrects, no, madam – rolls her eyes and chafes her arms for warmth. It dawns on him that she’s probably chilled to the bone after flopping like a rag doll down into that wash.

“Well, since you’re a businesswoman in quite the fancy dress, I’d wager your pockets are pretty deep. Now, if you’d like us to give you privacy to resume your bird bath over there, then I suggest you empty them as a means of inspiration,” he says.

“Believe me, I couldn’t put a price on the absence of your company,” she says with another roll of her eyes. “But as you can see,” she adds with a sweeping gesture down to her feet which, Bronn finally notices, are in nothing but some holey stockings, “I didn’t leave Proudwing on the best of terms or in the most favorable of conditions.”

A shiver as she hugs herself. Bronn glances to her feet again. Huh. She looked so fancy and put together when he spied her through Sigorn’s glass. He must have had dollar signs in his eyes.

Bronn pulls out his pouch of tobacco and a corn husk and commences rolling himself another cigarette.

“That uh, that cut on your on your lip have something to do with them terms and conditions?” he asks the cigarette before licking it shut and sticking it in his mouth.

She hesitates, watching as he lights up, but finally she nods.

“Shame. Robbing a lady’s one thing but hitting one is another jar of jelly.”

“You got that horse over there,” Sandor points out, gesturing with a beefy paw towards where an old farm horse grazes at the sparse grass. “That’d fetch some greenbacks.”

The woman gasps and puts a hand to her chest.

“Robbing me is one thing, yes, but you would dare to _strand_ me, this far out of a town that ran me out?”

Sandor shrugs on his terror of a horse. It snorts as if to scoff in his own horse way, and the sudden sound makes the madam just about jump out of her skin. Beric and Sigorn snicker and Bronn can’t help but chuckle himself.

“You said it yourself, you ain’t a lady. Well, I ain’t a gentleman. Seems we stand on similar ground.”

The woman glares at Sandor, and she does a fairly mighty job of it considering the hulk of a man she’s shooting daggers at. If looks could kill, Sandor’d be dead and buried. At least, he would be if that murderous stare didn’t instantly dissolve into enlightenment that is quickly replaced with shock. Her pretty eyes widen and her mouth drops open as she points at Sandor with a shaking finger.

“Those burns,” she says, prompting the typical sneer out of Bronn’s right hand man, but then her accusatory finger sweeps back and forth to the rest of them. “And there are five of you. You- oh mercy me, the whole town’s been _talking_ about that robbery. You- you’re the Blackwater Five, aren’t you?”

Bronn sucks in a lungful of smoke and exhales it in a beleaguered sigh. So, murder should have happened then. Instead, it’s gonna have to happen now. She seems to realize that herself, because immediately she drops her pointing finger in order to cover her mouth with both hands.

“Look, I- I won’t say a thing,” she says through her fingers before lowering her hands to speak more clearly. “I run a b-brothel for pity’s sake. I’m no saint m-myself.”

“Not a saint, not a mermaid, not a lady,” Bronn murmurs, sucking down half the cigarette in a few puffs before he pinches off the ember and sticks it in his vest pocket. “But we can’t have you be a witness, neither.”

“Can we at least fuck her before we kill her?” Tormund says.

“This day,” the woman says bitterly. “God in heaven, but I wish I had never gotten out of bed.”

“We ain’t rapers,” Sandor snarls as he swings a leg over the neck of his horse to dismount. “We ain’t ever killed a woman before, neither, boss.”

“We can’t let her go, Sandor,” Bronn says.

“You could, you know, why don’t you boys just go ahead and let me go. I’ll get my business ba– I mean, I’ll get my affairs in town in order and you can all have your fill. My name is Margaery Tyrell, and I run The Pink Parlour in town. Whenever and whoever you want, it’ll be on the house. Whiskey, steak, women. You name it.”

She looks ghostly in the waning sunlight that is fading to dusk, wide brown eyes with long curls to match. Tender and delicate like a wisp of smoke from the still-burning ember there in the rocks to the side of his horse’s left hoof. In truth they never _have_ killed any women before, though he’s fairly sure there’s a string of women in Tormund’s wake who need plenty of visits to the doctor. It would be a shame to start now, especially when this one is prettier than a picture, not that he’s cultured enough to understand art. Strong-willed too, despite how fragile she’s looking. She might be trembling, but her chin is held high and her gaze is a direct and unwavering pin in him.

“Mr, um, Mr. Blackwater?” she says. “At least, I presume?”

He rolls his eyes and nods. Of course he’s Bronn Blackwater. They don’t call him ‘boss’ for nothin’.

“ _Please_. I’m good for it, I swear. The man who did _this_ to me,” she says, pointing to her lip. “He’s a dirty scoundrel in my line of work, but I’m not. I play fair. Well, mostly. But I _do_ now how to strike a deal. My life is worth a million nights of free merriment. It’s worth a hundred billion and more. I’m _good_ for it, you hear?”

“Well she’s sure got a big head,” Beric mutters.

“Please, just let me go,” she says, stepping forward towards him.

A pleading, yearning gaze his way, a gaze that hasn’t left him in the devil knows how long. Goddamn, but she is beautiful.

Bronn clucks to his horse and ambles it forward. He’s not sure if he’s making a mistake or not, but Sandor’s words and this Margaery’s plea, her undeniable beauty, and an honest to god _very_ tempting offer of free nights galore at the local whorehouse, are all on his mind. Plus she’s not in any goddamn shoes, for chrissakes. And that cut on her mouth. That mouth.

“Well now, that’s impossible I’m afraid.”

“I was raised to believe that there _are_ no impossibilities, only opportunities,” she says quickly.

“Sandor, if you would retrieve the goods, please,” he says, patting his thigh as a means of further instruction.

The big man closes the distance between himself and the woman in about two steps, and before she comprehends what’s happening, he’s got her by the bicep. Margaery tries in vain to wrench her arm free from Sandor’s viselike grip. A steely glare to her captor before she rounds back on Bronn.  

“You’re not going to kill me, I can see it in your eyes. So I will take _this_ opportunity to _leave._ ”

“Nothing doing, missy,” Sandor says as he drags her towards Bronn. “Beric, go get that horse of hers. We can probably sell it since this wild goose chase has been of minimal productivity.”

“I’m afraid we can’t  let you go, ma’am, and I do offer my most sincere apology,” Bronn says with a grin. “But you’ve just positively identified a member of the Blackwater Gang, darlin’, so it’s looking like hostage-taker is going to be added to the long laundry list of our offenses.”

He scoots back in his saddle just in time for Sandor to grab Margaery round the waist, turning her round so that he can haul her up and onto Bronn’s horse, effectively sitting side saddle like the lady she isn’t would. She squirms like a fish as he secures a firm arm round her waist like the girdle he can feel through the fabric of her dress. _Maybe she is a mermaid after all._ He can feel her shiver, so he uses that as an excuse to draw her closer to the trunk of his body and its warmth.

“Get your hands off me, you- you _bastard!_ ” she gasps with another delicious wriggle that does nothing whatsoever to make him consider acquiescing.

Bronn throws his head back and laughs, tugs her deeper into his lap so she won’t slide off like a sack of potatoes. He wills his pecker to behave with an inner _Down, boy,_ because the feel of having a soiled dove in his arms once again only serves to remind him of the last time. Lord, that was a fun three days.

“I would think you’d be used to it, _Madam,_ ” he says as he kicks his horse into a brisk trot. He puts his mouth close to her ear, close enough to smell the perfume in her hair. “And how’d you guess?”


	2. Chapter 2

 

 _If only granny could see me now,_ Margaery thinks two hours after her kidnapping, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands as she sits on a felled tree trunk in front of a modest campfire. _She’s probably rolling over in her dang grave._

“All’s I’m saying is the rest of you should head into Proudwing without me. I’m the only sonuvabitch they’re gonna recognize,” Sandor says.

“Naw, brother, we’re in this together. ‘Sides,” says Beric, “Bronn would have none of it. And then little hurdy gurdy over there would tattle on us quicker than you can say ‘when.’

“Mmm,” Sandor acquiesces, giving Margaery a half-hearted glare.

They’re out in the middle of absolute nowhere on a cold, crisp, winter evening, and twilight is rapidly bleeding out into a darkness that is so pitch black the fire won’t do much more but illuminate a very small portion of their campsite. Margaery can hear the whickers from their horses hobbled somewhere behind her, and the sounds of their jaws working in their feed bags. Owls hoot and wind rustles through the cypress and white fir trees that cluster around them, adding their dark imposing figures to the waning visibility.

“Hey, where are them ready-cook beans?” says the guy she now knows as Beric.

Beans. Margaery suppresses a shudder, burrows deeper into the blanket, and closes her eyes. Granny raised her on garden vegetables and whatever luxuries went unused at The Pink Parlour; tinned oysters and sardines, pheasant and turkey brought in by her grandmother’s countless admirers back in her youth. Whatever delicious cakes and pies Cook came up with. She’s even tasted champagne once or twice after The Copper Queen Hotel opened its doors.

Now, beans.

“It’s here with the jerky, hang on a minute.”

The unique deep scratch to that voice can only mean it’s that brute who manhandled her, Sandor, rooting around in one of the saddle bags. They bicker amiably, the way longtime friends do, over rations and supplies, wonder what’s taking Bronn so long to scrounge up some game. Discuss the weather and if it’s going to snow sometime soon. They make utterly no mention of her and she couldn’t be happier.

Well, there are a thousand way she could be happier right now but each and every one of them are so far out of reach that it would be funny if it weren’t also so dang horrible.

Indeed, it is not her finest hour. Tattered stockings, muddy dress, hair like a rat’s nest from all this ridiculous wind. Exiled by fear from her home and her business and the town she grew up in. Ensconced in a flea-bitten old horse blanket that that snake Bronn was “generous” enough to give her once he took his horse’s saddle off.  It stinks of animal sweat but she has to admit – and only to herself, mind – that the creature’s body heat was a welcome relief after a chilly ride further away from Proudwing.

A gunshot nearby startles her nearly out of her skin, it pierces the relatively peaceful night air so astoundingly, and her head flies up and her eyes fly open as she looks around in fear. The remaining gang members freeze mid-action at her sudden movement, clearly startled into remembering she’s even there. Sigorn has a spoon of those ill-reputed beans hovering halfway to his mouth, Beric is in the middle of cleaning a saddle, and Tormund and Sandor are both gnawing on leathery strips of jerky.

Suddenly snapping himself out of his fog, the big ginger fellow roars with laughter, slapping his knee like a yokel.

“You jumped higher than a jackrabbit just now. That’ll be Bronn, bringing home the bacon, little missy, you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about.”

“Right now I can count _four_ things I have to worry about,” she snaps as she draws the blanket more tightly around her shoulders, trying for regal. “And they’re all looking at me like a gaggle of unhinged ganders with horse-puckey for brains.”

Sandor, forearms braced on his thighs as he hunches over on an uneven stump across the fire from her, takes the stick of dried beef out of his mouth and points it at her.

“Hobble your lip, girl, you’re lucky you’re alive. The five of us have a code and you should be goddamn grateful you ain’t with another gang. Most others don’t give two shits and a nickel about raping and killing women.”

Margaery snorts derisively.

“Oh, so ‘honor amongst thieves’ is it? Now that’s rich.”

Sandor returns the snort with one of his own, though he takes it a step further and closes one nostril to shoot a disgusting blob of snot to the ground. He returns to his jerky.

“As downright rich as ‘hooker with a heart of gold,’ and I bet you think you’ve got those in spades.”

They glare at each other so long Margaery’s eyes start to sting from the woodsmoke, but she’ll be damned if she lets this scarred up menace get the best of her. Not after he grabbed her and chucked her into Bronn’s lap like a prize turkey at a county fair. And she _knows_ she has a mean eye if she wants one; plenty of johns have tried to swindle the girls, but one icy look from granny’s progeny was always enough to get them to cough up the coin.

Sandor, however, doesn’t back down, not until Bronn shows up out of the blue, or rather, the inky darkness that has settled upon them without Margaery noticing during her little staring contest. It’s the crunch of his boots on gravel and dead grass that first alerts them, and all five of their little party look up and over where he emerges into focus.

First the black shadow of him and then the dust of his boots and chaps, set to a warm orange in the firelight. Then the shirt and vest and overcoat, the bandana around his neck. The Winchester he has resting against his shoulder, the glitter of his wolfish eyes as he lets his gaze land on her a good long moment before it shifts to everyone else.

“Well, ain’t this a merry little bunch,” he says dryly before tossing a big old rabbit onto the ground at Margaery’s feet.

“Hey now, why does she get to have fresh meat when we’re sitting here eatin’ jerky that’s tougher’n a mouthful of nails?”

“Just like mama used to make,” Bronn says cheerfully.

“You gotta be kidding me, boss, that ain’t right,” Sandor growls, the flicker of flame and shadow setting his scars to life as he talks.

“Now, now, calm down, boys, we’ll each have our share of fresh meat tonight. But little missy over here is going to skin it and clean it.”

“I’m going to do _what?”_

“I killed it, so you should clean it. We’ve given you our water, my blanket, my-”

“You’re _horse’s_ blanket, you jackass!” she says with more than a little indignation.

“Well, you know how to dress a rabbit, don’t you?” Sigorn asks.

Of course she does. No girl, brothel owner or no, grows up west of the Mississippi without knowing how to do a thing or two. Margaery’s mama raised her to run a household years before her granny taught her how to run a business. But she’s nobody’s wife, here, nobody’s maid, and she’ll be damned to tarnation if she lets this bully walk all over her.

“There is no way on god’s green earth that I am going to clean that rabbit.”

“Come on now, darlin’, we all gotta sing for our supper. Sandor hobbled the horses and Tormund built the fire, Beric here’s cleaning tack and Sigorn made beans. What are you gonna do?”

“ _Do_?” Margaery says, following up with a huff of incredulous laughter. “What am I going to _do?_ ”

She sweeps the blanket up and around her shoulders like a cloak as she gets to her feet and steps unceremoniously over the rabbit carcass towards Bronn. His eyes widen ever so slightly; without his brimmed hat he face is in full view, and she’s grimly delighted to see trepidation there in his expression, no matter that it disappears mere seconds later. _Let him choke on it._

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, mister,” she says, stopping her advancement only the moment she’s toe to toe with him. “

“I can think of a few things that she could do with that mouth other than talk,” Tormund mutters, gaining a snicker out of the others and a smirk out of Bronn as he glances to his crony.

Margaery jabs a finger into the sinewy muscle of his chest, and boy does that grab his attention real quick. He jumps at the contact, which is surprising considering he had her sit on his lap the entire ride up here. She watches as he lowers his gaze to where her finger is still poked into him, watches the slow lift of it until their eyes meet.

“Careful there, darlin’,” he says slowly, his voice low and deep like the endless night all around them. “I was feeling charitable earlier, but my mood can change with the wind.”

“Oh? Well that’s an interesting way to describe it, _‘darlin,’_ because changing with the wind is what my entire life has done today. First I get hit in the face with a pistol, then I get ambushed by a notorious gang of _idiots_ who proceed to rob me before they then decide to _kidnap me!”_

Another two pokes to emphasize the last two words, hard enough to slightly rock him back in his boots, and he’s looking more or less murderous, but Margaery doesn’t care, not after the day she’s had, not after she’s been knocked down from the pinnacle to land right on her derriere here in the dirt.

“Do you know, I woke up this morning wearing silk on a feather mattress, and now I’m in horse blanket in the middle of nowhere. So the _last_ thing I am going to do, is skin that fleabag hare and fix it up for my kidnappers to fill their bellies!” 

Poke, poke, _poke,_ until his hand reaches up quicker than a rattlesnake and snares hers, his glove a cold leather creak and crease over her knuckles, his thumb a firm press up into the center of her palm. Bronn gives her hand a tug, effectively pulling her in against his chest. _How is he so warm?_

“I told you, to be _careful_ ,” he says through clenched teeth.

It isn’t violent, per say, but she’s been raised around men her whole life, around women trained to please them, and she knows exactly what this is. A reminder of who, at the end of the day, bosses whom, whittling it all down to size and brawn instead of brains and common damn sense like the way it should be.

And because that’s the way the world and especially _hers_ works, she knows exactly what to do. Swallowing her anger, or at least pushing it to the back of the stove, she lets her hand soften and go limp in his so that he is the only reason it doesn’t drop back to her side.

“I reckon I might as well admit to complete ignorance when it comes to field dressing anything, let alone a rabbit,” she murmurs, eyes downcast before she looks up to where he is studying her intently. “So I couldn’t even if you made me.”

His jaw muscles flex like he’s a coyote working a bone, worrying out his next moves before the inevitable strike or retreat. More than likely he’s trying to assess whether or not she’s telling the truth. They stare in mute study of one another and it finally gives her a chance to really _see_ him. Dark hair and eyes to match, the stubble of a man who hasn’t had a shave in a few days, though it appears he prefers to be cleanshaven, unlike the rest of the gang who are in various stages between mustachioed and fully bearded.

Finally he nods, slowly releasing her as he lowers both of their hands. The leather of his gloves had initially been cold to the touch but between the two of them it, and her own hand, had warmed, and now she feels the loss of the touch out here in the nipping cold. Hastily, Margaery tucks it in the blanket, clutching the thing closed.

“Well why didn’t you just say that, without all that hemming and hawing,” he murmurs. “Sandor, hand me that knife,” he says without taking his eyes off her. “Time to show the lady how to field dress.”

 

Just as he figured, she learns real quick – too quick, if he asks himself – how to skin and clean a carcass, which all but confirms his suspicions that he can’t trust her farther than he can throw her. Then again he supposes he’s likely lower to her than Judas to the preacher man. Theirs are not the friendliest of terms, though he’s far more amenable to extend surface-level niceties, but packing heat and being in the position of power has its charitable side effects.

“See now, that wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” he says once all is said and done.

“As far as something to do to pass the time, that endeavor fits right in with the rest of the day’s events,” she says dryly.

Bronn harrumphs at that, already bored with the reminders of his influence on her day. He takes his canteen and holds it out to her.

“Here, let me see your hands.”

She obliges, and even in the firelight he can see how stark of a contrast the rabbit’s blood is on her pale hands. When he tilts the canteen and the water dribbles out, she hisses at the chill, chafes her hands together lightning quick to clean them before she wipes them on her skirts and pulls the blanket around herself all the tighter. He frowns. Now, he’s not a sentimental man, prone to tears or falling sway under his emotions, whenever he deigns to _have_ emotions, but the idea of this lady freezing to death doesn’t sound the most appealing. He had the warm flesh and blood of her in his lap, had the spitfire crazy of her not even an hour ago. Something about her all froze-up and cold just doesn’t sit.

After he’s done cleaning his own hands and Signorn’s seeing to setting up a rudimentary spit, Bronn squats next to one of his saddlebags and roots around for what’s just come to mind. He grunts with satisfaction when he finds what he’s looking for, wads it in his hands as he gets to his feet and heads back to where Margaery is still huddled under her blanket, staring sullenly at the rabbit Sigorn is doing an all-right job of turning.

“Can’t help but notice how cold you are,” he says gruffly as he tosses the garment into her lap.

She startles at the gesture, which he reckons he can understand, holds it up in the firelight with a confused frown.

“What is it?”

“Warm, is what it is. That’s my poncho. I’m not as susceptible to the cold as you are, what with your fancy fireplaces and iron stoves back home. I won’t need something that thick for a while now, so you’re welcome to it. There’s even half a chance it smells better than that horse blanket.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” she quips.

“I don’t know, depending on the smell you might want to,” he says, making her huff.

The firelight is low now that they need the coals to cook dinner, but it’s still bright enough to show the faintest of smiles there in the cut corner of her mouth.

And that reminds him.

 “So,” he says, sinking back into a squat and finally dropping his ass on the dirt. “Pistol-whipping women happens now and again in some of the earthier establishments we’re used to patronizing, but something about you tells me your own parlour ain’t that kind of place.”

He watches and waits while she shakes open the dusty poncho and slips it over her head. Watches with amusement as she grunts and grumbles and goes about tugging the blanket out from under the thick wool garment in order to wrap it around herself and the poncho.

“No,” she sighs once she’s settled into herself. “No, it isn’t.”

“What happened?”

She laughs and rolls her eyes before pinning him with a wry look.

“I have a hard time believing that you care.”

Bronn shrugs.

“Well, that rabbit’s gonna take some time to cook,” he says, reaching over for his saddle, which he drags over and positions it so he can lean against it. “Nothin’ but time to kill.”

Margaery eyes him warily, her gaze a narrow squint before she glances over at the others. They’re on the other side of the fire, talking aimlessly and in circles, arguing over this, that, or the other thing, a nightly ritual he himself usually partakes in. He’s grateful for it too, because it seems their marked lack of interest in anything she has to say is what tips the scales in favor of talking.

Another sigh, though this one is rib expanding, long and sad and deep. She shakes her hair back and closes her pretty doe eyes a moment before opening them to stare at the rabbit, which is starting to smell _mighty_ good. He waits, adjusts himself into a half-upright sprawl with his legs stretched out towards the fire and crossed at the ankle. Rolls himself a cigarette while she gathers up words like kindling to set her story ablaze.

“There’s another brothel in Proudwing, L'Oiseau Moquer,” she says with another roll of her eyes.

“Le what now?”

She chuckles halfheartedly, waves a hand in the air dismissively.

“It’s French. He’s a pompous ass.”

“Who is?”

“Oh, yes. Baelish. Petyr Baelish. He runs his on the other side of town but location does little to deter people from The Pink Parlour. They’ve never been able to gain as much clientele, and they’ve never been able to keep their girls from fleeing to my establishment.”

Bronn can’t help but get engaged. Warring whorehouses is more than a little interesting to a mangy cur like him.

“What happened? He do that to you, I reckon?”

“Yes, he did, and I think he meant to do a whole lot worse. I think he was trying to kill me, but I slipped out through a secret exit, ran to the general store and stole poor Mr. Roddick’s horse. So, please,” she says, turning to face him in full. “Please don’t sell that creature. I want to get it back to him.”

Bronn shakes his head and chuckles, gazes at the ember of his cigarette before taking a draw off it. This woman is downright confounding. He knows her to be untrustworthy and she has probably resorted to plenty of tricks and swindles in order to secure her business, yet now here she is looking at him with her pretty eyes, begging him to let her return a horse. But then again, he supposes a profession more straightforward than whoring likely doesn’t exist.

“This man wants to kill you, and you want to waltz back to town for the sake of some old nag?”

He omits the fact that she’d have to convince him to let her free, not necessarily to deceive but because it’s a tricky subject he’d rather not dwell on. He honestly doesn’t know what in hell to do with her. He knows he can’t let her go but also he can’t cart her around all over the state. And he’s already come to the conclusion that he really doesn’t want to kill her.

 She shrugs, shifting her perch on the felled tree to sit on the ground instead so she can lean against it the way Bronn’s currently repurposing his saddle.

“I need to go back eventually. I’ll just have to be real careful about it. Besides, I’m not much into horses and I’d rather not hang for horse-thieving.”

Bronn throws his head back and laughs so hard he starts coughing.

“What on earth is so funny about not wanting to hang?”

“First off, ain’t ever been a woman in Arizona who’s been hanged. Secondly, it’s nice to hear a little honesty from Little Miss Can’t Skin a Hare.”

She has the grace, or at the very least the practiced skill, to look chagrined.

 

Supper is far more satisfying than Margaery can even put to words, but after a day like today, she reckons she could eat a live fish right now and lick her fingers clean. Piping hot rabbit meat, beans, a biscuit so hard she has to soak it in the beans before she could sink her teeth into it. She’s as quick to wolf it down as the men are, too, which they all of them find funnier than Beric’s flatulence.

Margaery however, is wholeheartedly unamused.

Talk and clean up and camp organization all fade once the simple but filling meal is over. The six of them are dotted around the dying fire with more or less even spacing, though they gave her a slightly wider berth after her outburst earlier. She is just fine with that (and with the fact that Beric is clear on the other side of the fire).

Night birds and night noises settle down too; no more horsey whickers or snuffles, no more rustling in saddle bags though as each man uses their saddles for pillows, there is still the occasional creak of leather. Margaery herself has fashioned her makeshift bed in much the same way, though she is torn on whether to use the blanket as a mattress or as cover from the cold. She has never slept a solitary night outdoors and the idea of doing it right on the dirt is less than appealing. But it’s been a day of getting comfortable with being real uncomfortable, so she adds it to the list. Granny, after all, did not raise her to be inflexible (in more than one manner of speaking).

But before she can work out the logistics of her sparse bedding, there’s the issue of sleepwear.

“All right,” she says now the simple but filling meal is over. “I need you five to turn around.”

Sandor snorts.

“The last time a whore asked me that she robbed me blind.”

“I am _not_ a whore, as you well know. I am in desperate need to take off my corset and I’m not going to do it in front of five outlaws.”

Margaery has never, _ever_ been one to tow the line of morality or modesty, and she floats around The Pink Parlour wearing getups so risqué they should really be called get downs, but there is no way on God’s green earth she’s undressing in front of these men. They may say they don’t rape women, but there’s no way she’s going to be the carrot dangling in front of _that_ particular mule.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Tormund grins.

“Saying we was just regular men,” Sigmund asks, hope in his eyes and a strip of jerky in his mouth. “Would you do it then?”

“So much for your code of honor amongst thieves,” she snaps.

“We’re thieves, yes,” Bronn says with a chuckle around an after-supper cigarette. “But we’re still men. That’s low-hanging fruit right there, darlin’.”

 _If he calls me darlin’ one more damn time,_ she inwardly seethes. But she remembers full well what transpired earlier that evening after she went off on him, and so she doesn’t even bother finishing the thought. Instead, another plea for decency.

“Please, I _implore_ you,” she says, looking at each of them before settling her gaze on Bronn. “You know the kind of day I’ve had.”

“The quicker you hobble that lip, the sooner it’s over,” Beric mutters as he hunkers down with his saddle for a pillow and his wool overcoat as a blanket. “’Sides, I’m comfortable where I’m at.”

“You’re in a poncho,” Bronn says, yawning as he tosses his cigarette in what’s left of the fire.

“So?”

“So, take it off in there. We’re half asleep anyways. We may not be moving for your delicate sensibilities, but we ain’t exactly watching you, neither.”

“What, won’t you worry that I’ll sneak off in the middle of the night, if you're not watching me?”

All five men laugh.

“Where would you go? Even if you, the self-proclaimed opposite of a horsewoman, could figure out how to un-hobble a horse in the dead of night, you wouldn’t have a clue of how to get _anywhere_ , let alone home,” Bronn says with another chuckle.

She can’t argue with that.

“All right, fine, but keep your peepers shut.”

“On my honor as an outlaw,” he grins, his dark eyes closing.

She pulls her arms in under the poncho and immediately starts working the buttons of her dress. Her mother always told her to _never_ remove a corset by undoing the hooks in front, so she has to wriggle her way out of the dress until it sags on her hips in order to reach back and undo the laces. When the poncho slides off her shoulder, exposing her once warm skin the sting of the nighttime air, she hastily glances up at the men. True to their halfhearted word, they all seem to be sleeping.

It takes a bit of maneuvering but after a few minutes she’s blessedly free from her constraints, though she can’t finish buttoning her dress past her ribcage thanks to the freedom she just allowed herself. No matter; she’s got Bronn’s poncho and her camisole on besides, so it’s with relative comfort and ease with which she settles in for the night.

If she’s worried that sleep won’t come easy due to the circumstances she’s dead wrong, as her weary bones settle into the blanket she’s wrapped herself up in like a tattered butterfly returning to the cocoon. Memories of the day flit and flutter until they smooth out into barely discernible dreams, which is just as well considering none of them would be very good. But then the low rumble and rasp of two men whispering brings her back.

“Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

“Not a single solitary clue, brother.”

“Why in tarnation did you have to go after her in the first place?”

“Hell if I know. We botched that one robbery and she looked rich.”

Margaery, fully awake now, resist the urge to open her eyes. _They’re talking about me._ What’s left of the fire is still a smidge warm on her face so she knows they’ll see her. So instead she plays dead. Well, plays sleeping.

“You never could resist a pretty face, neither.” Sandor’s familiar gritty voice, a sullen mutter.

“Nary a man can.”

“You didn’t see _me_ throwing her over my shoulder and running off with her.”

A low growl of a chuckle.

“No, I reckon I didn’t.”

“Are you gonna let her go? We can’t just, we can’t just have her in our _gang_ now, for Pete’s sake.”

A sigh.

“I know, I know. I don’t know what, brother, just let me sleep on it, all right?”

“All right, boss.”

It is all she can do not to grin her biggest grin at the exchange, because that right there is music to Margaery’s ears. A man who’s made up his mind is one thing, but a man on the fence over an issue is a sitting duck to a woman like her. _By tomorrow morning I’ll be on my way home, licket-split,_ she thinks, settling into her little butterfly cocoon of horse blanket and poncho. _And I’ll even get him to make me breakfast first._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/183436921873/guns-hidden-under-our-petticoats-by-jillypups)

Bronn has always prided himself on being the last to slumber and the first to wake, so it’s with a fair amount of surprise when he finally cracks open his eyes to see not only the thin, watery sunshine of dawn, but also the equal parts pretty and terrifying sight of Margaery sitting beside him with a mug of coffee in her hands.

She’s a pool of dirty green skirts and a dirtier poncho, feet tucked under all that gussied up fabric, as prim as if she was sitting with some dandy beau at a lakeside picnic. Instead of sitting in the desert bush with a handful of outlaws and a belly full of beans. He has to begrudgingly admit, this gal’s got pluck.

Usually he rouses himself with a good scrub to his dusty, sleep-gritted eyes, a scratch to the groin and a good long piss on the periphery of the camp, but this morning he jolts up onto his elbows and shakes his head like a wet dog.

“What in the Sam Hill are you up to, woman? Are you fixing to strangle me in my sleep?”

He eyes the coffee in her hands.

“Or is it poison for breakfast?”

Margaery chinkles out a laugh, a merry little peel of laughter that clashes so spectacularly with her tangled hair, soot-smeared cheeks, and his dirty old poncho she’s still wearing.

“Oh hush, now. Can’t a lady do something nice for her host on a cold winter morning? I woke up early and decided to stoke the fire and make some coffee for you boys.”

Bronn narrows his eyes as he scoots himself up into a seated position, his cold saddle a hard back rest as he finally addresses the matters of his sleepy eyes and his heretofore unadjusted testicles. He takes a quick survey of camp. The horses are clustered together, clouds of warm breath puffing out of their nostrils with each exhale; Sandor and the rest of the gang are still huddled under their jackets, ponchos, and horse blankets, sawing logs like they’re getting paid for it. And then there’s Margaery, one hell of a mess but still the prettiest thing he’ll see for miles and miles. Still. He knows plenty about wolves in sheep’s clothing, considering how many times he’s donned different skins before.

“If memory serves, Madam, you’re no lady, so I can only ascertain that that cup of coffee right there is no more coffee than it is a big swallow of snake venom.”

Another tinkle of laughter and twinkle of a beguiling gaze.

“Now how exactly would I know how to wrangle a snake, Mr. Blackwater? I’ve already had a cup myself, look,” she says, holding up the tin mug like an offering before she takes a long, close-your-eyes sip of the hot beverage.

He scrutinizes her a moment, his gaze flicking from her eyes to the mug and back up again. It did get colder last night than a bowl of Tormund’s runny eggs. A good hot cup of brown gargle could take a man a long way towards warming up.

“Well, seeing as you ain’t seizing up right now, pass that over,” he says with a final scoot so he’s completely upright with his ass in the dirt.

“Here you go,” she says sweetly.

She hands him the mug that is deliciously hot to his cold hands, almost overmuch on account of the metal being so thin, but still it’s a welcome sensation as he takes along, near-scalding swallow of the stuff. It’s so hot he can’t even taste it.

“Does the trick, doesn’t it?” she purrs.

“You’d know all about those.”

A roll of her eyes and the tilt of her head as she tucks her now-empty hands back inside her – his – poncho. Toss of her hair, too. Bronn’s surprised little dust clouds don’t puff up from the movement.

“Oh, is that a joke at my expense? Right on track considering everything that’s transpired since yesterday morning. Listen, bandit, I won’t beat around the bush. Granny always told me to butter up a man first thing in the morning, and what better way to do that on a cold morning than with a hot cup of coffee?”

Bronn sniffs, spits on the ground far off his right, and takes another fortifying drink. He shrugs, flicks his gaze to her before back to his coffee.

“You could have added some breakfast along with it.”

“Oh,” she whispers conspiratorially as she leans in. “I did make breakfast for you boys, but _that’s_ where the poison is.”

Bronn laughs despite himself.

“All right, sugar, then what are you buttering me up for? We don’t got a hot bath or a bottle of champagne or nothing, so what is it you’re trying to do me for?”

She sniffles too, though far more daintily than he himself just did, almost simpers, huddles herself deeper in his poncho. One of his men farts and grunts in his sleep, and Bronn has to hand it to her, how she ignores it entirely.

“If I were trying to do you, you’d have been done already, _sugar._ All I’m asking is that you _let me go._ You know as well as I do that there’s nothing I can say that a sheriff would listen to. You know as well as I do that I can’t roam all of Arizona with you and your gang. And _I_ know as well as you do that you don’t want to kill me. Regardless of me being a lady or not.”

Bronn sips his coffee and hums after the not-so-hot sludge makes its way to his belly. He suppresses a shudder now that he can taste it. She sure can sell an argument, especially this goddamn early in the morning, but Christ almighty she sure can’t brew a pot of coffee for shit. Besides, there is the immeasurable relief about no longer having to worry about carting this woman around for the rest of his days.

“Listen, now, we can’t have you—”

“What, running to the sheriff who turns a blind eye to the nature of my establishment? I don’t bring that sort of attention to myself _or_ my business. Or, what? Running through the streets in a town where there’s a man who already wants me dead? You talked about the rules of your gang, no killing or raping women. Well, we have some rules in my profession, too. Only skim a _little_ off the top, take care of your girls, and keep your trap shut whenever you see something shifty going on.”

She’s ticking off on her fingers, looking down at them with her eyebrows raised like she’s reading a speech off each digit. Bronn can’t help but crack a tired smile, chuckle, and shake his head. Pluck, gumption, tenacity. All those words used to describe a green horse before it’s broke. Headstrong, willful, dangerous. But thinking of horses makes him think of an old farm nag with a pretty, brown-haired girl on its back, its rider tearing out of town in nothing but silk stockings and a fancy dress. That makes him think even more.

“You didn’t go to the sheriff when that pansy dude with the whorehouse tried to kill you,” he says slowly, looking down at the rapidly cooling, and rapidly souring, coffee in his hands.

She snaps her fingers excitedly.

“Yes! Exactly! Good lord, now why didn’t _I_ think of that.”

Bronn snorts, lifts his gaze from beneath the black of his brows. _You really are somethin’, aren’t you, little lady._

“That little confession aside, I suppose there’s some merit to your claim of keeping your mouth shut.”

She nods solemnly.

“All I ask is for that horse, and- and, well, if you’d be so kind, the extended use of this here, ah, _garment_ you lent me,” she says delicately, glancing down to his poncho. “It’s getting colder each day and I have no idea how long it will take me to get back to town.”

“Fair’s fair,” Bronn says. “You take my ‘garment’ then I get to take yours.”

Margaery’s eyes widen.

“You can’t- I never- you can’t take my _dress,_ Mr. Blackwater, if I’m needing a poncho to keep from freezing to death, you can be darned sure that I’ll be needing my dress as well.”

He laughs. Bronn leans forward towards her, points over her shoulder until she’s looking at the object of his bartering spirit.

“Not your dress. That thing over there by your pallet, that corset you were so eager to get out of. I’ve heard ladies talk of the cost, I know I can fetch a few coins for that trussed up thing.”

She turns back to stare at him with her mouth open, only just remembering her manners before it snaps shut with the clench of her jaw muscles. _Clearly, she wasn’t expecting that._ But she recovers well enough, another sniffle to emphasize the cold, another downcast gaze as she attempts demure while smoothing his old poncho atop her folded knees. A thin shoulder shrugs.

“Very well then, I suppose that’s fine. Fair’s fair, although what woman will want to buy a corset off of you, I’ll _never_ know. Here,” she says, taking his mug from him and lifting it as if to toast. “We’ll drink on it then.”

Bronn grins as she closes her eyes, pinky raised while she lifts the mug to her lips. Her eyelids flutter a moment before her eyelids fly open, she lowers the cup, and only just turns in time before sputtering the sludge out all over the rocks and scrub brush.

“Oh my word, that’s _horrible,_ ” she gasps, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Bronn roars with laughter.

“Better stick to your champagne, sugar.”

Margaery sticks her tongue out at him before getting to her feet.

She doesn’t take long to ready herself while the rest of the camp wakes up and breaks everything down. Though Bronn reckons that’s less on account of her overall efficiency and far more to do with the fact that she doesn’t have anything but the clothes on her back, the horse under her derriere, and the water Sigorn was kind enough to fill a spare canteen with.

“Now you keep going thataway,” Bronn says from where he stands by Margaery’s nag. “You’ll eventually hit that wash where we were so fortunate to have made one another’s acquaintance, and from there you’ll know just where to go.”

He’s pointing due east back toward Proudwing, his right hand on the farm horse’s rump with he uses his left to aim her in the right direction. After she nods and assures him she’s got the lay of the land more or less down pat now that it’s light out, Bronn nods in return. And then he grins, shouts _HYAH_ and gives her steed a solid slap on the rear.

“You devil!” she gasps. “I never want to see your face again!”

The horse rears up, only just a couple of inches, and then with a loud whinny of protest, both beauty and beast tear off back towards town.

“I thought you didn’t trust her,” Sandor says gruffly as he comes to stand beside Bronn. “You said it yourself.”

Bronn rolls himself a cigarette, _Good lord, now why didn’t I think of that_ ringing like a bell in his ears.

“I don’t,” Bronn answers with a chuckle. “That’s why I’m going to follow her.”

 

Margaery Tyrell slinks back into her business like so many rats slink out of a sinking ship, using the steep surrounding hills and lay of the town as cover. The streets of Proudwing are winding and narrow and sandwiched between tiered rows of buildings on this side of town, houses stacking up the sides of steep hills that flank the little valley town. But the houses on the lower side of the street don’t butt up directly to the roads in order to give everyone a little alley space, and it’s through those spaces that she picks her way back to her home.

There’s slop to step around and thorny shrubby bushes to pick her way past. A few dogs that bark courageously and a few cats that meow indifferently. Lord, do her feet hurt now. And to think she felt bad for her rear end after yet another bone rattling ride. Now she’s pitying ten little piggies that men used to pay a fistful of dollars just to tickle.

_There ain’t a single man on this planet who would pay to see them now, let alone tickle them._

The racing of her heart picks up speed like a locomotive the closer she gets to home. She’s worried about what she’ll find. Worried about her girls, if any of them had the bad sense to put up a fight. He had no qualms whipping _her_ with a pistol, and she comes from money and notoriety. These poor little no-name soiled doves won’t have anything to stand on, let alone anyone to lie under to make rent.

“Shoo,” she whispers, nudging aside a fat hen with her toe as she slips through another tiny narrow yard. “Go on, or you’ll give me away.”

The last thing she needs is some busybody housewife finding a disgraced madam in her yard. First she’d think Margaery was an overgrown guttersnipe, then a fallen woman, and then when Papa comes home and recognizes Proudwing’s most successful madam, oooh Nelly. That’d be an argument explosive enough to bust open a new mine for Mr. Baratheon, the town founder.

But if the ride and the stockinged-foot walk put an ache to her derriere and blisters on her toes, the sight of The Pink Parlour puts pain in her heart, in her very bones, to see what’s left of all granny did, of all Margaery herself did to preserve it. It is, as Olenna herself would say, were she unlucky enough to rise from the grave only to see this, a 100% utter dog and pony shit show.

Granny always knew her percentages.

And she’d be right to call it a dog and pony shit show, considering the disrepair of the once lavish establishment. On the floor, broken glass and stubbed out cigarettes, stained rugs from Turkey or India or Timbuctoo for all she knows, a ripped and torn nightgown that makes her flinch.

She lets an uncharacteristic whimper pool and ripple in the back of her throat, and before she knows it, she’s overwhelmed with the even further uncharacteristic desire to cry. Margaery blinks up at the ceiling at a strange stain that looks suspiciously like a dried spatter of chewing tobacco juice. Her vision swims with unshed tears, and suddenly the stain looks less tobacco-ey and more like granny’s old silhouette drawing Margaery’s grand pappy had done for her back in their salad days.

She hugs herself and lowers her gaze to the dirty floor. A breeze through a broken pane of glass makes her shiver. The rustle of dried out boughs riddles her with gooseflesh. The loneliness she feels makes her sigh.

_Snap out of it young lady! Right this instant, or else I’m gonna start thinking I didn’t raise you right, and I raised you better than my own son._

Margaery gasps and inexplicably stares right back at that stain again, half expecting it to be staring right back at her with its hands on its hips. She blinks away the tears before they fall, rubs her eyes with the palms of her dirty hands, and stares up at the stain again.

“G-granny?”

_Don’t be stupid. Be my clever girl and pull yourself together. And take a bath, for god’s sake, I can smell you from here._

Another breeze and a rustle, and the place feels emptier now than before, though somehow warmer for it.

Now, Margaery is not usually one for ghosts and superstitions. Hell, she’s barely even this close to being one for church on Sundays. The latter is usually reserved for business matters that require a little elbow-rubbing (amongst other things) with the congregation. The former _was_ reserved for late nights with the girls and a bottle of rye, passing around the lamp to tell spooky stories and make them all shriek in earnest instead of the forced kitty-mewls they make while between the sheets.

But in this moment? She can’t help but wonder.

“It’s my mind playing tricks on me,” she finally says to no one, or so she reckons. “I know exactly what she would say, that’s all.”

It’s true, and all, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t give that tobacco stain a look of scrutiny as she heads further into the parlor.

Margaery tip-toes to a pair of discarded ladies’ shoes by the bar. They look like Alys’s. She slips them on to protect her throbbing feet, not like the constriction of leather does her much good. A quick, properly-shod inspection of the place proves it’s pretty much worked over. Not so much as a drop of liquor left behind the bar, and she can tell from the ajar cash register that she won’t find so much as a penny as she will a Lincoln skin.

“This is a fine kettle of fish,” she mutters as she heads to the back and up the stairs.

The small individual rooms, or boudoirs as she was raised to call them, are all empty and cold and sad, and they seem almost dusty though she’s really only been away a couple of days. Weak winter sunlight does little to brighten them. And then there’s her room.

Lord, did someone give it a good thorough ransacking! Bloomers and corsets and stockings strewn on the floor, a riding boot tossed onto her vanity, her pitcher of washing-up water overturned and a big stain on her rug. But that reminds her. Suddenly she snaps her fingers and grins, tossing Bronn’s poncho over a shoulder to better haul up her skirts and get down on her knees by the rug. She yanks it aside, flinching as old water sprays her in the eyes, and then grins down at the wooden floorboards.

One old plank is just as discolored and dusty as the others, though it’s got a secret little world behind it, though the two nails pinning it in place don’t attach to anything more than air and a cobweb or two.

“Let’s see just how thorough that idiot was,” she whispers.

She tries using her fingers to pry it out from the other boards until she breaks a nail, and then she’s scrabbling to her vanity on her knees until she finds a thin metal file. That does the trick, and after a few moments she tosses aside the plank and sighs with relief, sinks back on her heels after pulling out the wad of paper money and presses it to her bosom.

It’s not enough to start another business but it’s certainly enough to get her a horse – _maybe a buggy, too,_ she thinks with a wince and a rub to her rear end – and some supplies in order to high tail it out of town and get her ducks in a row.

“Now,” she says, hauling herself to her feet with a groan. “I pulled myself together, granny. So I guess I just need one more thing before I get a carriage out of town.”

Margaery packs herself a small soft traveler’s bag with some underthings, warm undershirts and two spare jackets. A clean, warm, more practical skirt. The money, more stockings, and as she hurries out of her room to pilfer from the other girls’, her silver and ivory hair comb. From the other rooms she finds a few other magpie items like a man's gold ring, a silver dollar that idiot Petyr overlooked, and under one feather mattress, a small flask that she immediately takes a swig of before slipping it in her bag.

“All right, one more thing,” she whispers to the tobacco stain before scurrying back towards the kitchens.

_Food._

The vandals and frightened girls didn’t touch too much back here. Into her bag go heels of cheese and shiny apples, a handful of pecans, a semi-stale loaf of bread. Hotels and their fine dining are the only way she’s ever traveled but the lessons to be had from her brief stint with those bandits will not go overlooked. It’s why she also grabs some coffee (though the memory of her last cup is enough to make her shudder).

She’s almost out the door before she stops and looks down at herself.

“Oh good lord, what am I thinking, heading out like this?”

There’s no mirror in the kitchen but she can only imagine what her hair and face look like if her outfit is this horrendous. Mud everywhere, the faint scent of urine from when she tried to make water as discreetly but also as cleanly as she could, which is a lot harder for a woman to do when she’s on the run. Her feet ache and her stockings are torn, and when she does a tentative check with a pat to her hair, she finds blades of dead grass.

 _I can smell you from here_ marches through her head, and a quick glance to the kettle on the stove is all she needs to nod firmly.

“Just a quick rinse,” she murmurs as she grabs the matches and lights the stove. “It’ll take nothing more than two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

The kettle is whistling by the time she’s out of the poncho and her ruined green dress. She’s shivering but once she pours that water out into a wide blue-and-white basin she couldn’t care less, once she splashes her face with piping hot water, once she dips her hair in. A clean rag is soaked and then pressed under her arms, beneath and between her breasts, and after a perfunctory glance around the deserted kitchen, a good thorough scrub between the legs.

She washes her feet too, once she’s more or less done with the riper and more crucial upper parts of the body and is in fresh bloomers and undershirt. She sets the basin on the floor and strips off shoes and stockings, stands in the warm water scrunching her toes as she puts her damp hair to rights with her beloved comb.

“Now I’m ready to face the world,” she says with a happy sigh, twitching another clean rag off a shelf to dry her feet.

A sudden _CRACK_ of gunfire is her only answer, and the only answer to the deafening discharge is the rattle of her window panes.

Margaery screams and stagger-slips out of the basin, claps her hands over her ears and twists to look back behind her into the parlor room, heart racing like a jack rabbit in spring.

There in the open doorway stands Bronn Blackwater, feet planted shoulder-width apart, brimmed hat low over his eyes, lever-action rifle still aimed in her direction. Slowly he lowers the gun and steps into the room.

“You sure do have bad luck when bathing, darlin’. Don’t you think?”

 

Christ almighty, if she isn’t the prettiest girl he’s seen in a blue moon. Bronn has seen this woman in a variety of states, nearly all of them disheveled or in partial undress, but this right here takes the cake. She’s wearing nothing but her underthings, starched white and thin enough to see through. It’s almost enough to make him forget the man he’s just shot dead protecting a bawd.

“How dare you- you told me you’d- how _dare_ you? You said you weren’t women killers or rapers!”

Bronn chuckles and gestures lazily with his rifle, pointing it at the dead body slumped just on the other side of the door frame from where she’s standing. There’s a small part of him that feels somewhat like a barn cat, proudly displaying his handiwork. But Margaery only blinks in confusion.

“What is this, some sort of parlor game where you make me guess? Or a carnival game where I run back and forth behind the bar-top and you try to shoot at me?” she snaps, her initial fear overcome with irritation.

Bronn sighs with exasperation.

“Step out here and see for your high-falutin’ self, woman,” he snaps back, jabbing his gun in the direction of her would-be assassin, whose dead hand is still wrapped around the grip of his gun. “I just saved your life, though now I’m starting to have second thoughts and more than a little regret at taking the time out of a very busy day.”

Lucky for him, she folds her arms across her ribs, pushing her breasts up and together, before she gingerly takes the three steps necessary to bring her out of the back room and into the scene of the crime. Bronn sniffs proudly when she gasps at the sight of the dead man. A hand flies to her mouth. She looks back and forth between himself and his victim like she’s watching a game of toss.

“I- I didn’t think anyone saw me. I was so careful.”

“If you were so careful, how did I follow you here?”

“What? You- wait a minute, you _followed_ me? Didn’t think you could trust me, hmm?”

Hands on the hips now. Even better.

“Of course I didn’t think I could trust you. Makin’ coffee and small talk while I know full well how much you despise me. But you better be mighty grateful for my suspicious and closely guarded nature, or else you’d be deader’n a doornail like your friend right there.”

She doesn’t seem to have to a comeback for that one, but even across the room he can see her jaw muscles work as she bites back whatever angry thoughts are rolling around in that pretty head of hers. The light casting in from the open doorway paints her in pale winter sunlight, warm only due to the late afternoon hour, cool high desert breezes tickle her bare skin and harden her nipples as they stand there regarding each other like two coyotes deciding on whether to fight or not.

“You there!” someone far away outside shouts. “You there, in the bordello! Did you just hear gunfire?”

That snaps them out of their irritable reverie. Bronn glances behind him to see a man in suspenders about five storefronts down, walking their way, the same man he saw spying on her while she picked her way through the chickens and trash. Finally he lets the bigger of his two brains do the thinking when it comes to her state of dress. He draws a circle in the air with his finger towards the kitchen.

“Go on now, get dressed. He’ll be here lickety-split, and after this dude right here tried filling you full of lead, I reckon you don’t want anyone else knowing you’re back.”

Realization that she’s one stiff breeze from being naked, Margaery jerks into action, spinning around and bending to retrieve a skirt, waistcoat, and stockings. Luckily for him and their time constraints, it’s a far simpler getup than the fancy green dress he first saw her in. She’s far more school marm than brothel owner, though when she rolls her stockings on and up, up, up, he catches a glimpse of the madam.

“Go on, now,” Bronn says once she’s disheveled-but-decent. “I’ll keep watch for you ‘til you get out. Ain’t nobody seen me or recognized me here, yet. Not without Sandor and the gang.”

She stops trying to braid her hair and stares at him, crestfallen and scared at the same time, downturned mouth a perfect bow.

“I don’t know where to go!”

“You don’t- you came flying downhill into town and you don’t have a _plan?”_

Truth be told, he doesn’t exactly have one either. He just wanted to make sure she didn’t turn tail and head to the sheriff. Now he’s gone and killed a man in town with an eye witness ambling towards them.

 Suddenly he’s got a little panic to him, too.

“My plan was to get a carriage and get out town, but now I’m too scared. This is the _second_ time someone has tried to kill me in almost as many days. I don’t know what to do. Lord, I hate saying that out loud,” she says, staring off into he middle distance before flicking her gaze to a strange stain on the ceiling.

“Well listen, darlin’, I can’t stick around either,” he says with another glance down the street. “I need to head out myself before they turn me into a jailbird.”

The lookout man is only two storefronts down the street now, and his pace is quickening. Bronn grimaces and looks back to Margaery, who is now standing toe to toe with him. He jumps like a cat on a hot tin roof, and the sensation is still a clanging clatter of _What in tarnation_ when she rests a hand on his arm.

“You have to take me with you,” she whispers, giving his arm a squeeze. “Please, Br- Mr. Blackwater, please.”

“And here I thought you never wanted to see my face again,” he says dryly before taking another quick glance over his shoulder. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” he says when he and the man lock eyes briefly from 100 paces away.

Now he returns her gesture. Her eyes widen when he takes her by the upper arm not ungently, but he has no time for small talk as he turns her around and steers her towards her bag.

“Now’s where you tell me you got a secret way out, little lady,” he says hastily, pushing and following her into the back room. “Because we are two shakes from getting discovered with a dead man, and more’n likely by that dead man’s friend.”

She’s a nimble stagger and trot in front of him.

“Yes, of course there’s a back entrance, but wh-what? What d’you mean his friend?”

“I ain’t the only one who’s been paying attention to your whereabouts.”

Her hands tremble but Bronn is pleased to see she’s got her wits about her. None of this smelling-salts, hand-to-the-forehead nonsense. She quickly bends to scoop up her fabric bag by the wooden handles, and, he notes keenly, his poncho, which she puts on as she hurries to the back of the kitchen.   

Bronn casts a final glance over his shoulder out to the mercifully empty parlor before he turns back and prods her out of the small, narrow back door and squeezes through afterwards. He pulls the door closed gently until he hears and feels the click, and then he turns to her. The outlaw in him makes him flash her a sudden grin.

“Hope you’re ready for another long ride sitting in my lap.”

“I’m _ready_ for not dying,” she hisses.

“One in the same,” he says, taking her by the hand with his free hand as he tugs her out of her little yard space and up onto the road.

They hurry off in silence save for the high hitch of her breathing as they run, though he assumes she can breathe better without those damned corsets. He sat around camp long after she fell asleep last night, turning the mystifying contraption over and over in his hands. Bronn’s horse Bullseye is right where he left him, nosing around for grass on a lonely winding dirt road in the poorer side of town where people don’t make enough money to be curious about the goings-on of others.

“Hop on up now, I’ll get on after,” he says, slinging his gun strap over his head so the rifle rests against his back. “I’ll sit in front.”

“And here I thought I’d be on your lap,” she says all dry as a bone despite the situation they’ve put themselves into.

“Plenty of time for that development, darlin’.”

They ride in relative peace and anonymity until they get closer to the main drag in town. Bronn’s estimation that there was only one lookout is painfully proven wrong the moment they turn onto Mine Street. There is a cluster of three men dressed like they’re from back east. The one he recognizes points at them.

“You there! That’s him, that’s the man I saw in that whorehouse over on Garnet!” Suspenders shouts as they trot, and then lope past him. “Harness the horses!”

“Oh, goddammit. Hold on tight, now,” Bronn grits out, digging his heels as far as he dares into Bullseye’s sides.

The horse leaps to life with such sudden force that even he leans back a bit. Margaery squeals, letting go of the bag on her lap to wrap both arms around his middle, effectively keeping her belongings in place due to the sheer strength of her grip on him.

“This is the opposite way we came from,” she notes after he gallops them back to where the town peters out against the hills and they turn west instead of east.

“It’s always best to stay on one’s toes. I told the boys to set up camp on the other side of town, but I reckon we’ll have to change that now, just in case they catch our direction.”

He takes enough detours to shake the three bravos, thanks mostly to Bullseye’s agility but also to their asinine insistence on getting around town in a buggy like some old widow. Town is soon behind them as they crest one hill and then two, steep scruffy watchdogs that hopefully keep the wolves at bay.

Her grip loosens only marginally by the time they’ve put enough distance between Proudwing and them and he slows the horse down to a trot and finally a walk. His thoughts wander. The creeping pace he kept following her, first on horseback and then on foot. The man in suspenders. The way she bathed herself. The tantalizing way she undressed and dressed. The sudden realization from his position by the door that a man crept in through a window, gun drawn. The raising of his rifle and the ear-ringing discharge. Her scream.

Suddenly something creeps back up to him, and he chuckles.

“You don’t gotta call me Mr. Blackwater, you know.”

“Oh, what, is that your father’s name?” she says with a snort of amusement.

“I don’t reckon so, seeing as I’ve never met him. Bronn’s fine, just call me that.”

She _mmphs_ at that.

“Well I am about up to my ears with all the darlin’s and little lady’s and all that trash. My _name_ is Margaery.”

He chuckles again. _Fair’s fair._ A black corset blooms like a new spring flower in his mind.

“All right then. I’ll call you Margaery, if you call me Bronn.”

A pause. A rustle of skirts as she shifts in the saddle. A readjustment of her arms around his middle.

“Fine, then. Bronn.”

He glances back to her and tips his hat.

“Pleasure to meet you, Margaery.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's such a long one! But I didn't want to linger too much and wanted them to get somewhere, both in the plot and physically, lol. BUT ANYWAY HERE'S WONDERWALL
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> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/184140466988/guns-hidden-under-our-petticoats-by-jillypups)

It is an altogether bizarre feeling, fleeing town with the man who kidnapped her just two days ago. But to say that adaptability is a job requirement for Margaery would be an understatement. She’s thought on her feet not too long after learning to stand on them. Heck, it’s what she’s doing here holding on for dear life, cheek pressed into Bronn’s shoulder blade as she watches acacia trees and spindly ocotillos pass them by.

 _I’m going to need to formulate a plan, and quicker than a jackrabbit hops,_ she thinks as she chews on her lip.  _I’ve got the girls to think about, too._

The air is cold and stings the inside of her nose just from breathing, so she turns slightly against the wool of Bronn’s overcoat to dull the chill somewhat. Woodsmoke and tobacco, horse-sweat and the smell of the sun, the warmth of a man’s body. It’s been long enough since she’s had that particular scent that she almost, almost closes her eyes and inhales. But then Bullseye’s gait slows once more as they amble down a short but steep hillside towards another wash, lined with cottonwoods and sycamores. More than enough coverage from prying eyes, Margaery reckons.

They both lean back as one to alleviate Bullseye of their weight while the horse picks its footing downhill, his ambling pace jerked to the sides here and there as he nips at dry grasses on the way.

“The gang should be down here waiting,” Bronn says as he twitches the reins and guides the horse around a small thicket of bristly cacti. “And then the intention is to hightail it up to Tombstone. I’ve got friends there, see, and it’s a good enough distance to let rumors die down for us men, and enough distance to get that Baelish dude off your scent.”

Margaery lifts her head and stares at the back of his neck. Tombstone is dang near 30 miles away.

“Tombstone? I can’t go to  _Tombstone,”_  she says.

Immediately Bronn stills the horse mid-slope and twists in the saddle to look at her over his shoulder. This close she can see the winter sunshine winking off his stubble, and it makes him squint even with the shade of his wide-brimmed hat, though that could very well be him scowling, considering his incredulous expression.

“Now, just you wait a minute,” he says. “First you beg me to take you along with me, and now you’re telling me you can’t  _go_? What in the name of Sam Hill is the matter with you?”

She opens her mouth to speak but then they’re both jostled in their saddles when a rustling in the wash startles Bullseye, who jerks his head up from his grassy snack and dances off to the side. Bronn turns to face forward once more and commandeer his beast. There’s a slightly terrifying moment when the unsettled horse trips on a large stone, and Margaery gasps and reinforces her loosened grasp around Bronn’s middle.

“Who’s that up there,” a man shouts from the cover of foliage, voice dark and raspy like wind through a cypress grove.

“You know damned well who it is,” Bronn says with a chuckle, and he clucks his tongue to encourage Bullseye down the remainder of the hill.

They trot down to the gritty sand just as Sandor emerges from the tree line on the other bank of the ravine-wide wash-bed. The look on his face morphs in quick succession from stoic relief to disbelief to downright indignation.

As is his way, Margaery reckons, at least for the latter expression.

“What in hell is  _she_ doing here?” Sandor says. “We just got rid of her and now she’s back? Goddammit, she even said she never wanted to see you no more.”

“That’s just what I told her,” Bronn says with a laugh. “And then she begged me to take her with.”

“Some man tried to  _kill_ me!  _Again_!” Margaery says hotly. “You yourself saw those other men.”

“That’s the west for you. Yet Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary over here doesn’t want to go along with our plan,” Bronn says with a roll of his eyes.

Sandor snorts. Margaery is reminded of foul-tempered bulls in a pen.

“Lookin’ a gift horse in the mouth don’t surprise me one bit with that one,” Sandor mutters, turning to lead them back to the trees. “Well, come on, I’ve got some jerky and coffee waiting, boss.”

A glare over his shoulder at Margaery letting her know full well the offer only extends to ‘boss’ and not to her. She rolls her eyes as they come to a stop at a small ring of stones and a smoldering fire butted up against a wall of rock and scrappy trees.

“I brought some food, you know,” she says,” handing Bronn her bag after he dismounts. “I’m more than willing to share.”

He hefts the bag once before setting it down, shakes his head with another signature chuckle of derision.

“There ain’t no way you’ve got enough food shoved into that garment bag to split amongst five men,” he says, extending his hand to help her dismount. “Where are the others, anyhow? It’s mighty quiet around here,” he says with glances all around the narrow ravine.

“About that,” Sandor says with a sigh.

He squats down by the fire, uses a glove to protect his hand as he pulls the pot of coffee out of the embers. There’s a brief moment where he flinches as the wind shifts and blows smoke and heat in his direction. Margaery’s gaze flicks from the ruin of his face to the still-red coals, and something in her mind clicks. She  _hmms_ to herself, makes a note to give the man perhaps one less iota of sass.

Just the one, though.

They all sit in various repose around the fire while Sandor pours coffee into tin mugs. He gives her a stony look of dislike as he finally hands her a cup of her own.

“Thank you kindly,” she says as sweetly as she dares under such a glower.

He grunts and turns to Bronn.

“The others headed into town not long after you left to check up on your ward, here,” Sandor gruffs with a perfunctory gesture towards her.

“What? Why did they do a damn fool thing like that?” Bronn says, sipping his coffee before he  _Ahs_  and gives Margaery a glance and a smirk. “Go on, Margie, take a sip. Far better than this morning’s swill.”

“Still not champagne,” she mutters, though she has to admit – only to herself, mind – that it tastes absolutely divine, all comfort and warmth after yet another day sprung from the pits of hell.

“I’ll be honest, boss, I don’t rightly blame ‘em. We’re past brass tacks and damn near down to nothin’. There ain’t even enough flour or lard for hard biscuits.”

“Oh for pity’s sake, here,” Margaery says, setting her coffee down in the dirt. “You’d think this was a ragtag gaggle of orphans instead of a rough and tumble gang of hardened criminals.”

She reaches for her bag, mindful to keep the silk purse of cash well down at the bottom and out of range when it comes to Bronn’s curious peer at the contents. Out come the loaf of bread and the heels of cheese, passed around to the men who both seem to wilt with relief. Sandor in particular seems ravenous, which doesn’t surprise her much, big thing as he is. Strong, too. His hands possess more than enough muscle and strength to tear the stale bread into big hunks that in turn get passed back around.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, chewing on cheese and using their coffee to soften the hardened bread. The sun is a high-up source of light and heat, though the shade they’re in cools the air considerably, and wind rustles cottonwood and sycamore leaves, whistles through pine needles, makes Margaery’s freshly-washed and braided hair dance where it’s come loose around her face. It’s beautiful, out here. They only need babbling water flowing in the creek to make it almost pastoral, here with two outlaws and a brothel owner.

 _Why it’s downright idyllic,_ Margaery thinks with a snicker as she yanks apart a chunk of softer innards of her bread.

“Well, what were they gonna get, and with what?” Bronn says finally. “We ain’t exactly shittin’ in high cotton these days.”

Margaery fights the instinct to pull her bag closer to her, protective as she is of her life savings. Talk of money is usually fascinating to her but talk of leaner times makes her all the more aware of and sensitive to the fact that she’s basically richer than a bank out here.

“Salted beef, bacon and flour, tobacco, beans and a little rye whiskey. Eggs, potatoes, some cheese. Beric wanted socks, too.”

“And with what riches will they be procuring this haul?” Bronn peers up at the sky through the tree boughs, holding his hand out, palm up. “Is it raining money?”

Sandor nods towards Margaery, who raises her eyebrows at the implication that she’s had a hand in this sudden spree.

“That fancy girdle of hers.”

Ah. So, not a  _hand_ , per say.

“It’s  _called_ a corset. And I’m still miffed that you forced me to trade that beautiful thing for  _this,_ ” she says, plucking at the poncho she’s still in.

Both Bronn and Sandor glance at her, shrug, and recommence conversation.

“Tormund also had a mind to try his hand at cards to try and double their haul.”

Bronn shakes his head testily, tearing into his bread with teeth that, Margaery finally notices, are surprisingly clean for someone who smokes and likely doesn’t spend a whole mess of time on dental hygiene.

“Well, bully for him. If he gets in a fight over cards, I ain’t there to stop it and I aint’ there to help him.”

But if Tormund did get into a fight, it wasn’t a particularly brutal one that sent him to the jailhouse, for a just a few moments later the ravine is full of distant rumbles of horse hooves and the ever-increasing sound of voices. It’s hard to tell how far away they are due to the auditory tricks these miniature canyons can play on the ear. All three of them get to their feet and move to the tree line where they can see, at last, the other three members of this wayward gang.

“Looks like the corset sale went well,” Bronn murmurs at her side with a light nudge of his elbow to her shoulder. “I see bulging saddlebags. Maybe that will stop their grousing, and if it does, I owe you many a thanks, Margie.”

“It’s  _Margaery_ , and I don’t think that’s all they got,” she says, elbowing him hard in the ribs.

Bronn’s body moves with the impact, an exaggerated sway like she’s just clobbered him with a cast iron skillet.

“Oof. What do you mean?”

“There,” she says, pointing to the horse and rider in the rear. “That man right there. Who is that, Sigorn?”

“Yeah, I reckon it is,” Bronn says with a squint as he leans forward to catch a better view.

The three horses, two roans and a paint, do the same pick and amble and grass nipping as Bullseye did, and finally after making another switchback, Bronn finally sees what Margaery did almost at the outset.

“Well I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Bronn mutters. “They brought another woman.”

Sandor throws his hands in the air and stalks off back to camp.

 

It is a veritable flurry of activity once the rest of his gang picks their way downhill and across the wash, and sure as shit, there’s a woman on the back of Sigorn’s horse. More of a girl, really, lanky and thin, but gussied up damn near as fancy as Margaery was when he first spied her. And truth be told, she’s the reason for the hullaballoo, and not Sandor’s temper tantrum at the first sight of yet another woman. No, the source of commotion comes from behind Bronn as he rifles through Tormund’s saddlebags, by way of a soft hand on his arm and the mighty push that sends him in a staggering side-step.

He looks over to see her standing there like she’s looking at a mirage or a specter.

“What gives, woman? I mean, Margie?”

“Alys?” Margaery whispers as she steps towards Sigorn’s horse where the girl still perches.

There is a high-pitched gasp from the brown-haired young thing.

“Margaery! Oh thank  _god,_ they  _were_ telling the truth!”

And like that the girl named Alys flings herself off the horse, stumbling only a little bit before the women run towards one another, each with one arm outstretched while they hold up their skirts. Meteoric collision as they fling themselves into each other’s arms in a ferociously tight embrace, eyes closed and screwed together to keep tears at bay.

“What on earth are you  _doing_ here?” Margaery asks at last, holding Alys out at arm’s length to regard her.

“I’m asking myself that same damn question,” Sandor mutters before he goes  _Ah_  and pulls a bottle of whiskey out of one of the packs.

“You and me both, brother,” Beric says with a grunt as he dismounts, and he jerks his head toward Sigorn. “This bastard just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“What in tarnation is going on right now?” Bronn says with exasperation. “Did you or did you not forget who runs this ship? Disobeying orders and kidnapping women?”

“There’s a pot over there, if you wanna call it black,” Sigorn mutters as he hops down out of the saddle.

“Enough hemming and hawing, now, and get to the facts of this particular mess you’ve made.”

There is only the  _faintest_  feeling of hypocrisy lurking in the back of Bronn’s thoughts, but it’s dispelled more or less with firmer convictions like  _I am the boss_ and  _I was_ _attempting a robbery_ and  _do as I say not as I do._

“She overheard us down at one of them watering holes in town, talking about displaced madams and what not. Told us she works for Margaery and got swept away by that bunko artist over at Le Wahi- L’Whu- Le somethin’ or other. She seemed pretty desperate to find her mistress,” he says, gesturing with a wave to where Margaery and Alys are standing and chattering nonstop and ignoring the men with ease.

“And you figured you’d swoop in like a thoroughbred, taking care of a damsel in distress. I can tell you from personal experience, judging by the antics of her mistress over there, there likely ain’t a whole lot under the sun that can distress these women.”

He thinks of Margaery’s gasp of shock at seeing the dead man, and then the relative speed with which she put herself back to rights. Thinks back to only a few minutes prior at the calm collection of a girl who would rather skip town with a bandit than hunker down at home.

“Boss, what the hell was I supposed to do? You yourself just came back with the one person we was trying to get rid of, on account of feeling, what, bad for her?”

There is only the briefest of pauses before he answers.

“Someone else tried to kill her so I shot him dead,” he mutters with a shrug.

Sigorn throws his hands in the air.

“Well, shit, boss, my apologies for not killin’ a man for her first.”

“Put a cork in it, Sigorn,” Bronn snaps. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around all’a this.”

“We’re going to hell in a damn handbasket,” Sandor says as he uncorks the bottle, the hollow  _thup_ of it punctuating his sentence between he takes a deep swig. “That’s what’s going on at the moment.”

Bronn is half-inclined to agree with him.

He takes a few steps back and observes the scene with his arms folded across his chest. It’s as merry as a goddamn picnic now. Two pretty girls chat and stroll down the length of the wash, arm in arm. Sandor wipes whiskey out of his beard. Beric and Tormund bicker like a couple of fish-wives over whose turn it is to peel potatoes. And Sigorn just stands there like a bumpkin, scratching the back of his neck as he watches the women with a confused look on his weather-beaten face.

Finally Bronn sighs, rolls a cigarette, and claps his hands together loud enough that the little gorge echoes with it. He takes his time striking his match and inhaling, stares at the ground while he scratches his ass before he finally looks up. He grins despite the situation, because he knows his men, and sure enough, the time he gave them to snap out of their collective horseshit is just enough to get them all staring at him with rapt attention.

“Y’all idiots better sit down and tell me what in hell is going on.”

The five of them head back to the campfire and sit around it. Turns out Beric has lost the argument, and he sits there scowling as he peels a few potatoes, being sure to save the skins in a tin plate for future stews. Before Bronn demands the full story, he leans over to gaze down the length of the wash where Margarey and Alys are still talking _._

“All right,” he says finally once he turns back to his men. “Spill it.”

Turns out Tormund did decide to try his luck at cards, and the three knuckleheads decided to wander into none other but Margaery’s nemesis’s whorehouse. There were no brawls, thank the devil, but they did indeed run into Alys, who overheard their idiotic and over-loud conversation about what the past two days have brought them thanks to one pretty but persnickety madam.

No wonder Alys recognized her employer, with such a precise description.

“When you finally snuck this soiled dove out of the nest, did anybody see you?”

Sigorn returns to rubbing the back of his neck. Bronn has half a mind to snap at him to wash it if it’s bugging him so bad. But the man does have the decency to look sheepish, at the very dang least.

“Well,” he says slowly, carefully, too slow and careful if you ask Bronn. “I reckon there was somewhat of a fuss on the way out.”

“That was this red-haired blowhard,” Beric says, pointing to Tormund with his pocket knife. “Started carrying on about wantin’ a woman of his own. I mean, hell, I ain’t got a woman neither.”

“Ain’t nobody here’s got a woman, there just happens to be women  _here,_ ” Bronn says with a roll of his eyes.

“The last thing this group needs is another woman slowing us down,” Sandor says from where he sits on a tilted old boulder. “No offense, boss, but that one’s had you distracted for two days now. All we need is another cowboy mooning over another whore.”

“I am  _not_ mooning,” Bronn and Sigorn say in unison.

They glance at each other and then look away. Bronn gives Sandor a good hard look that simply makes his right-hand man shrug a shoulder and take another swig of whiskey.

Bronn clears his throat.

“Listen, it’s clear to me that none of us are welcome in town, so we got get out of it. Especially those girls, if what Margie says about that Petyr Baelish is true. Alys’s desperation to hightail it out of there suggests that exaggeration is unlikely. Hey, Margie!” Bronn interrupts himself with a holler. “Get on over here.”

Both women drift over, dress hems dusty from the wash though they neither of them look too worse for wear on account of it. They remain on the outskirts of the makeshift camp, not quite so far away as the horses but somewhere in between. Peripheral and fully aware of it.

“What is it, Bronn?” Margaery asks, absentmindedly patting Alys’s linked arm.

“What’s this about, you not going to Tombstone?”

Her eyes widen as if she cannot comprehend the question. Bronn narrows his by way of answer. It’s a damn good question, considering her current state of affairs.

“Why, Tombstone is a full day’s ride from here! Maybe even more! I can’t go that far from my home and my business. I just, I need a few days to figure out how to get it back without getting killed.”

“I won’t let  _anything_ happen to you, Margaery,” Alys says with a firm squeeze of her hand on top of Margaery’s.

She’s a fierce little thing to be sure, mighty no matter how small. Bronn has to hand it to the pair of doves, he hasn’t ever met a woman quite like them, and he’s spent plenty of his life in brothels, both in his formative years and those that came after.

He shakes himself out of it, literally shakes his head like he’s trying to knock something loose between his ears because her reasoning is about as balled up as his ability is to comprehend it. Turns and takes two steps away before spinning on his heel in the dirt to walk back to her, finger wagging in her face like he’s a mother scolding a child.

“You  _just_ fled your home for the second time in as many days after as many goddamn attempts on your life. I am currently at sea, trying to wrap my head around your desire to go back. There’s more than a few men wandering Proudwing right now, scouring the back alleys and pig pens for you. And you want to  _stay?_  You ain’t the dumbest woman on earth, but you better hope she don’t die.”

Margaery rolls her eyes, unflappable even when being insulted.

“I did not say I wanted to  _stay,_ just that I didn’t want to go so far from it. There has to be  _some_  town closer than all the way up at Tombstone, this isn’t the Sahara, it’s Arizona.”

“What the hell is a Sahara?” Tormund asks as he cleans his fingernails with a pocket knife.

“Well,” Alys sniffs. “We haven’t found the world’s dumbest woman, but I reckon we found the dumbest  _man._ ”

Sigorn snorts a laugh that he hastily suppressed when Tormund glares at him.

“There’s always Hereford,” Alys says. “That’s where I grew up and it’s only a handful of miles to the west of Proudwing. It's a tiny old town and tucked away enough to miss any word of mouth.”

Margaery beams first at Alys and then she turns that smile to Bronn with a snap of her fingers.

“Perfect, we’ll go to Hereford!”

“Who in Sam Hill do you think you are, calling the shots?” Sandor growls. “Boss says Tombstone.”

“Well,  _I_ can’t go to Hereford,” Alys says.

Margaery drops her arm, unlinking it from Alys’s as she takes a step back from her employee with her hands on her hips.

“What on earth, Alys? You just said you were from there.”

“Let’s just say I didn’t leave to see the sights,” she says delicately. “And let’s also put forth that Hereford isn’t gonna be welcoming me with open arms anytime soon.”

Margaery cranes her neck to regard the girl, clearly surprised at this information. For one, Bronn is secretly pleased to see that at least someone can pull a fast one on this woman. For another, he is also illuminated to the reasons why Alys takes no issue with hopping on an outlaw’s quarter horse.

“Which is it boss? Tombstone or Hereford?” Beric asks.  

Bronn sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He knows full well he shouldn’t be swayed by this creature, but a funny thing happens after you kidnap, set free, and save the life of a pretty woman; you tend to feel somewhat invested in the idea of them making it through the next night. Not that he would ever admit that out loud (he can barely stand to admit it to himself). And then there’s just plain old logic.

“Word’ll be spreading from town to town about a gang of five, not that the addition of two members of the fairer sex doesn’t somewhat throw the scent.”

“I see nothin’ fair about ‘em,” Sandor mutters.

“Yes, Sandor, we are all well aware of your feelings on the matter. But even if Miss Alys here  _could_ go to Hereford, a motley crew of seven is far too conspicuous for such a small town,” Margaery says.

It’s true. Bronn’s been through Hereford, and as forgettable as it is, he still can recall nothing much more than a general store.

“At any rate, I reckon it’s a good idea to split the party up and send some to Tombstone, to lie low until the gossip dies down. I’ll take Margaery over to Hereford and after an undisclosed amount of time passes, I’ll join up with you folks.”

“I ain’t going without you,” Sandor says quickly as he recorks the whiskey.

“Fine, then, the others go to Tombstone. The three of us will head over to Hereford the minute we’re packed up.”

Bronn gazes up at Margaery, who is smiling at him as beatifically as a painting of the Virgin Mary, going so far as to even clasp her hands and press them to her bosom. For a red hot minute he is tempted to throw his head back and laugh. Bronn flicks his cigarette into the fire and gets to his feet.

“Come on, Queen of Sheba. Your chariot awaits.”

 

Margaery has to admit it, not that she likes to, but Bronn was right. Hereford is smaller than a henhouse and just about as exciting. There is a general store and church, a saloon and school house (though they are not neighbors), and one tiny albeit cheerful looking little post office. They all sit like ducks in a row on the road across from a rickety old railroad station, tufts of high desert grasses providing the only sidewalk on either side of the dirt road main street. It’s rural enough to make home feel like the big city, not that she’s ever been.

“Welcome to your new roost, Margaery,” Bronn says dryly from where he sits in front of her. “I sure hope it’s everything you wanted and then some.”

“’Then some?’ Where is this ‘then some’ you speak of,” Sandor says sarcastically, twisting around in his saddle and looking around as if he’s searching for a dropped hanky. “There ain’t shit here.”

She can’t help but laugh, because he’s not wrong.

“There’s a saloon just over yonder, so I wager you’ll be just fine,” she says sweetly.

When he glares daggers in her direction, Margaery flutters her lashes like a coquette and blows him a kiss.

It wasn’t a long ride, not compared to what poor Alys and her unlikely companions are still facing even in this very moment, but still she finds she’s saddle sore. All this to-and-fro on horseback these past two days have done a number on her bones, and she’s not even old enough for spinster laurels. They even dropped the pace to a walk once they saw the town on the horizon, but it’s enough of a side-to-side rocking and jostling to make her muscles feel weary as well.

“I sure do hope there’s a hotel around the bend,” she sighs. “What I wouldn’t do for a long hot bath.”

Sandor and Bronn both roar with laughter.

“Now that’s about the most precious thing I’ve ever heard,” Bronn says with a chuckle as he wipes his eyes.

“Which part? Her thinkin’ there’s a bend in this two-bit town or her thinkin’ there’s a hotel?”

“Oh hell, both, I think,” and Bronn dissolves into laughter once more.

Margaery scowls.

“Well then, where on earth are we going to _stay_?”

“I don’t know, this wasn’t my original plan. There’s hotels and boarding houses aplenty in Tombstone.”

“If I never hear about Tombstone again, it will be too soon,” she mutters, folding her arms across her chest for emphasis of her dark mood, seeing as they amble too slowly to require that she hang on to Bronn.

“Tombstone,” Sandor says before taking a swig from his canteen.

“Oh shut up,” Margaery snaps.

Bronn suggests the general store will be the best place to ask about room and board, though they also have the option of the post office for reputable folks, and the saloon for folks more like themselves. They dismount just in front of the store, the men landing first in order to wrap their reins around the hitching post. Bronn turns back to her and holds out his hand. She glances at it derisively.

“I thought it was ladies first,” she sniffs.

“Age before beauty,” he grins.

She huffs a sigh. That she’ll take.

Margaery slides her left hand into his and grips her traveling bag in her right. His is a firm squeeze around her hand as she swings her right leg up and over Bullseye’s rump, and as she sinks her weight from stirrup to god’s green earth, she has the sudden light pressure of his other hand on the low of her back. Sufficiently lowered from steed to solid ground, she turns around, leans against the horse and releases his hand. There is perhaps a momentary breathlessness, but she uses it to pat her poor attempt at a hairdo and gives him her best bored look.

“Why, thank you. My surprise at your chivalry is at an all-time high.”

Another grin, a shrug, a step back as if he’s surveying his good work at not being a total heel from sunup to sundown.

“I don’t know if it was chivalry, but you’re welcome all the same.”

Another roll eye later, and they’re in the general store, past the window displays of tobacco and small rolls of lace, tools and leather boots of all sizes, the little bell affixed to the door tinkling and chinkling their arrival. It’s dark and cool and full of aroma, bolts of cloth and rows upon rows of sweets behind the counter that make Margaery’s mouth water. She would ask for one of each, but the idea of pulling out her money right now in front of these two men has her more than a little wary.

“Now what,” mutters Sandor as he stands, or rather hulks, next to them, shoulders up as if he’s afraid to bump into something.

Which, honestly, is a fair concern considering his size.

“We find the shopkeep and ask for some damned guidance,” Bronn says.

They stand in the center of the store looking around, until finally from the far corner in the back amongst the barrels of dried beans and split peas, stands a young man with dark hair that, Margaery realizes once he walks towards them, is actually more auburn than brown.

“Afternoon, folks. I do apologize for taking so much time back here. Old Mrs. Celtigar spilled kidney beans all over the dang floor.”

He’s perhaps 15, 16 years old, blue eyed and affable. Dusts his hands off on his white apron before returning to his post behind the counter with the big register. Sets about organizing and reorganizing a display of tinned peaches before he looks up.

He smiles kindly to Margaery and nods politely to Bronn, who tips his in return, but there is a double take and flinch to Sandor before he recovers himself and clears his throat. He glances to Margaery before settling his gaze on Bronn, smile still there though now there is slight trepidation.

“I don’t reckon I’ve seen you all out here in Hereford. Small town, Hereford.”

It’s not a warning, per say, but it is an add-on to his sentence that drips with apprehension. Instantly the social climber and situation diffuser in Margaery wakens, and she watches and listens to the interaction carefully and with ears pricked. Bronn might be clever when it comes to breaking the law, but only a madam could better know how to toe the line and present an illusion when those who live on the moral high ground come sniffing around the lowlands.

“Just passing through on our way to stake a claim near Proudwing. Wondering what kind of room and board we can find in small town Hereford.”

The young man nods.

“Yeah, there’re folks in town who take in travelers, so long as they’re trustworthy folk. Usually we get ‘em off the train, but I didn’t hear one come through.”

“We rode in just now. On our way from uh, from Tucson.”

The shopkeep’s eyes widen.

“Well now that’s a mighty long ride, especially for a lady,” he says with a nod towards Margaery. He glances outside and frowns, suspicion mounting higher when he looks back at the trio. “Especially on just two horses and no wagon in sight.”

“Yes, well,” Bronn says with a rub to the back of his neck.

Margaery could kick herself for the tardy realization that their odd little group is, indeed, rather an odd one. Two bachelor men on horseback with what appears for all intents and purposes to be an unwed maid? Pair that with a lack of horses and a wealth of horrific burn marks on Sandor’s face, and there’s no wonder why this young shopkeep is giving them a sidelong frown. Suddenly she remembers the men’s ring she pocketed back at The Pink Parlour and snaps to action.

“It was my silly old idea to skip trains and enjoy the countryside, seeing as it’s such a mild winter. And then my husband, brother-in-law, and I were waylaid on the road, you see,” Margaery says with a post-traumatic frown and the wide-eyed batting of her lashes. “They stole my horse _and_ my w-wedding ring,” she whimpers with a hiccup.

The effect comes almost instantly as his deep blue eyes train on her with a now-sympathetic frown. She focuses on him, willing him to ignore the fact that both Bronn and Sandor have rounded on her in incredulous confusion.

“Ma’am, I am truly sorry to hear that. The country out west isn’t much of a place for a fine lady such as yourself, and it pains me to hear you had such trouble near our neck of the woods.”

“Your _wedding_ ring?” the outlaws say in unison.

Margaery glances down at the floor as if in shame for being burgled, sidles up to Bronn and links her arm with his and rests her head against his broad shoulder.

“I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you. I know how much you loved your grandmother’s heirloom, and I just felt so awful and foolish for wearing it out on the open road. Will you ever forgive me?”

She slowly lifts her head with an expression of sorrow and adoration as she gazes up at Bronn, who is staring down at her with a clenched and working jaw, a frown of befuddlement and irritation creasing his brow. Now she’s willing him to _get_ it, to comprehend the sort of predicament they’re in and how hard it would be to obtain room and board without some sort of contrivance such as the one she’s just spun out of nowhere.

Finally, he nods, imperceptibly, having likely run through a few scenarios where the truth played out instead of a pretty white lie. Well. A beige one, to be fair.

“Of course, _darlin’_ , I could uh, I could never be mad at you. Not for long, at least,” he adds dryly before turning to look over his shoulder at a still-boggled Sandor. “Guess I’ll have to save up to buy her another one, brother.”

“You’re so good to me,” Margaery simpers, giving his arm a squeeze before she looks back to the shopkeep. “So! Young man, is there anyone you know of in Hereford who lets rooms?”

“Why, my family does, over at Winterfell Ranch,” the youngster says. “My ma lets rooms as a way to make ends meet, now that pa has passed on to his greater reward. I can see you’re a respectable lot; I can go on and close the store for a tick and show you there.”

“Why, that would be just wonderful! Isn’t that wonderful, darling?” Margaeru enthuses, giving Bronn another dreamy-eyed glance.

“Mighty fine of you, mister uh,” he says, trailing off with his hand outstretched for a shake of introduction.

“The name’s Brandon, Brandon Stark,” he beams, extending his hand as well to shake Bronn's. “But you can call me—”

He is interrupted by the chinkling of chimes and the swish of gingham skirts through the front door, and the four of them look up in unison. There is a swish of an auburn braid as a willowy young woman – _now_ she _is definitely a lady,_ Margaery thinks – bustles in with a pail hanging by its handle from the crook of her bent elbow.

“Bran, you goose, you left your dinner at home the third time this week!” she says, turning to close the door behind her. “Mama just about had a _fit_ about it until I told her I’d saddle up old Nan and bring it round for – oh, my, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you had customers,” she says, interrupting herself as she turns around to see them all staring at her.

Lord, but she’s a pretty young thing. Eyes bluer than Bran’s and hair brighter than a vein of copper. Too sweet and good for the likes of Margaery’s enterprises, but good _night_ she could make a killing at The Pink Parlour. No wonder Sandor can’t take his eyes off her.

“They’re fixing to be our guests, actually, seeing as they just came into town, freshly burgled and missing one horse and a ring,” Bran says. “Lady and gents, this here is my oldest sister, Sansa.”

They three of them introduce themselves, or rather, Margaery does it for them, tapping Bronn on the shoulder and gesturing to Sandor as she does so.

"This is my husband Bronn Tyrell and I'm his wife, Margaery. This here is his brother, Sandor."

“Pleasure to meet you,” Sansa says, nodding with a pretty smile to Margaery and Bronn before looking up at the towering bulk of the scarred outlaw.

Here she sucks in a small little breath, visibly shaken, but Margaery has to hand it to her, how well she masters herself, even better than her little brother, who still did a semi-decent job of it as well.

“A-and a pleasure to meet you, Sandor,” she says, outstretching her hand that is in a pretty, white, crocheted little glove.

Sandor’s jaw drops as he stares at her.

Bronn snorts and leans in towards his right-hand man.

“Now who’s moonin’?” he chuckles.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](https://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/185280644038/guns-hidden-under-our-petticoats-by-jillypups)

“What in the name of Sam Hill were you thinkin’, springing that marital nonsense on me like that?” Bronn hisses over his shoulder as they plod along behind Sansa and Bran’s horses. “I can appreciate a woman who thinks fast, but what if I had bungled that up? It would have set off some mighty big alarms in that kid’s noggin.”

He and Sandor already came _this_ close to mucking it all up, what with their indignant outcries over wedding rings. His stupidity has him almost as rankled as her gutsy stealing of the show.

Margaery waves her hand in the air like she’s chasing off horseflies.

“You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit, Mr. Tyrell. I knew you’d cotton on.”

“And speaking of that, why in the hell didn’t you use _my_ name instead of yours? Seein’ as how a woman typically takes a man’s name when she marries him. Not that I seem to recall any ceremony.”

He looks back at her in time to see her wrinkle her nose in distaste.

“Margaery _Blackwater?_ Tyrell has a much lovelier ring to it. Besides, I don’t care how much Alys swore that the rumor mill doesn’t churn in Hereford, Bronn Blackwater is a wanted man, in case you forgot. Bronn Tyrell doesn’t even exist, and that makes it a perfect cover.”

She’s got him there and they both know it. He mutters a few colorful curse words under his breath and turns around to watch the trail. It’s grassier here in Hereford than it is in Proudwing, though it being winter renders the grass a dull dead yellow instead of bright or even pale green. But it’s temptation enough for old Bullseye, who nips and snips and chews his way to Winterfell Ranch. The lazy tempo and relative safety they’ve now found themselves in both serve to lull Bronn in such a manner that he’s finally able to realize how bone weary he is and has been. Suddenly Margaery’s talk of hot baths doesn’t sound so ridiculous.

“Here,” she says.

“What is it now?”

“Take your glove off. Your left one.”

“What for?”

“Because I’m proposing marriage, you idiot. Here,” she says again.

Bronn looks down when he feels her arm come around him so that she can hold up a man’s gold ring in front of him. He sighs and bites the tip of his glove’s index and yanks his hand out. Spits the glove into his lap before he gives Margaery the reins and works the piece of jewelry over the knuckle of his ring finger.

“It’s on the tight side,” he says, taking advantage of her holding the reins to take a swig of water from his canteen.

“Well, that’s what you want to hear when something’s coming from a brothel.”

Bronn spits water out all over Bullseye’s mane. Margaery just laughs and clucks them on into a trot. She’s still steering them along when the trail widens out into a makeshift road of wheel ruts. And then just like that, with a slight hairpin turn to the left, there’s home sweet home.

Winterfell Ranch is a large homestead, one of the bigger ones he’s seen in his years, a sprawl of packed dirt that yawns in front of the main house and breaks down into grassy-lined paths to the barn and between corrals. Made of clapboard the color between beige and grey, and a couple of brick and mortar chimneys, the two-story ranch house is far more boastful than any rickety cabin Bronn has ever called home, though his ma’s house is so distant in his past he can’t even conjure it up. 

Beyond the homestead a few rolling hills rise up like lovers’ knees under the covers, spotted with old pine trees and spiny yucca. It’s not exactly the steeper Mule Mountains Proudwing is tucked into, but it’s gentle, like a breath in a storm, sturdy and stoic and serene. And, up until this moment, quiet as a breeze on a still pond until –

“Sansa Stark, where have you been? I told you to head on down and come straight back directly. How are you going to secure yourself a position as schoolmistress, let alone a husband, if you can’t be punctual?”

Sandor looks around at the seemingly deserted ranch.

“Where in the Sam Hill did that come from? Y’all got banshees out here?”

“That’s no banshee,” Bran Stark chuckles as he turns in his saddle to look back at Sandor.

There’s the squeak and then slap of a screen door and suddenly an elegant albeit harried looking woman emerges, an apron round her waist and an old rag tossed over her shoulder. Hands on the hips and a frown that they can all see from here.

“No,” Sansa says with a good-natured roll of her eyes and a smile as she gently urges her horse towards the barn. “That’s our mother. Coming, Mama!” she calls out as she pulls ahead of the small group.

“I’m not much good with mothers,” Bronn mutters, tipping his head back so only Margie can hear him.

She hums a laugh that somehow tinkles even though it never leaves her throat.

“Don’t worry, husband, I am a veritable dream with them.”

“Thought you’d be better with fathers.”

Margie snorts, though when she speaks he hears amusement, which for some reason makes him chuckle.

“That’s precisely why I learned how to be good with the mothers.”

She proves it, more or less, once a reedy young fella hustles out from behind the barn with a couple of ropes in hand. Bran and Sansa have already dismounted, the former having already taken the latter’s reins so she can lift her skirts and hustle towards the wraparound porch where her mother waits. Bran introduces the approaching boy as his brother Rickon, and there are handshakes all around until Sansa and her mother approach, arms linked, two auburn-haired songbirds in gingham.

“I am told we have visitors,” Ma Stark says with a warm smile and an even warmer voice.

Far cry from screeching across the yard, Bronn thinks with amusement.

Bran dusts his hands off on the seat of his britches once Rickon leads Bullseye and Stranger towards the barn, turns and smiles at his mama.

“We sure do, Ma. Met ‘em down at the store. They’ve had a run-in with some trouble and I couldn’t rightly send them on over to the saloon. Not with this here lady having just been burgled.”

Ma Stark’s eyes widen as she turns to Margaery.

“Heavens, no! Not here in Hereford!”

“No, ma’am, on our way from Tucson, heading for Proudwing. I- I have never been so terrified in all my life,” she says with the hitch and warble of a dainty voice.

Bronn can barely contain himself. This woman has already been through hell and back in a matter of days. The idea of losing a ring terrifying _her?_ He wishes he wasn’t standing behind her so he could see the look on his imposter wife’s face. It must be a good one, to be selling such an outright lie.

“You poor lamb,” Mrs. Stark says, patting Sansa’s forearm before letting her go in order to approach Margaery with that same hand extended. “Why don’t you folks come on in for some coffee and a slice of pie.”

“Oh that would be _lovely,_ Mrs. Stark,” Margaery says with saccharine, damsel-in-distress emphasis, though Bronn knows her to be neither of things.

The two women, three with Sansa in tow, head towards the main house. Three skirts a-swishing and three braids shining in the late afternoon sunshine. Bran excuses himself to remount and head back to town, and just like that Bronn and Sandor are left alone staring at each other. For a few beats neither man moves. Horses whicker from within the barn. A breeze dries the sweat on the back of Bronn’s neck, giving him gooseflesh. A hawk screeches from above one of those grassy hills.

“Did she say pie?” Sandor asks at last with a bewildered shake of his head. “I can’t tell you the last time I had pie. Are we dead in heaven?”

“Hold your horses, compadre. Depending on what that wily woman gets us into, it could very well be hell we’re walking into.”

Regardless, they’ve both got a pep in their step as they walk towards the house and the waft of warm apples and hot coffee, towards the sway of women, towards whatever hijinks Margie can kick up.

 

The moment Mrs. Stark – whose first name is Catelyn – opens the screen door and leads them inside, Margaery feels like she’s back to civilization. Ironed curtains filter the pale winter sunlight that streams in through the windows, dappling the floorboards with lacework patterns. A solid albeit finely carved dark wood table dominates the dining room off to the right of the front hall, while the living room to the left is peppered with horsehair sofas and clusters of wing-backed armchairs, all hallmarks of a home converted to the sort of establishment that offers room and board.

A few moments of small talk – _I’m so sorry to hear about your troubles on the road; this house is absolutely charming!; Miss Margaery, may I take your bag?; Yes of course, thank you kindly, Miss Sansa –_ is all it takes before the other two members of her odd traveling party step inside after dragging the soles of their boots on the wrought iron scraper just outside the front door.

“Well,” Mrs. Stark says with bright, cheerful authority, hands clasped in front of her waist. “Now that we’re all here, why don’t you folks sit down while Sansa and I bring out the refreshments. Then we can discuss how long you’ll be staying with us.”

The two Stark women smile and turn as one, heading through the dining room to what is presumably the kitchen. Margaery turns to regard her companions, and cannot help but smile. The house is a fine one, she has no doubt, though she’s seen finer, however it’s clear that Bronn is a duck out of water in a place like this. He’s got his hat clutched in one hand while he rubs the back of his neck with the other, mouth agape as he takes in his surroundings. Sandor just stands there, staring in the direction Sansa headed. He glances her way, double-takes and turns the look into a glower when he realizes she’s caught him rubbernecking.

“What? I’m just hungry, that’s all,” he says, striding past her towards the dining room table.

Bronn chuckles.

“Ain’t nobody doubts that,” he says as he joins his righthand man, the chairs scraping on the floor as they pull them out. “It’s just a matter of what you’re hungry for.”

“Or whom,” Margaery says daintily, sitting at Bronn’s other side.

“Shut your trap,” Sandor mutters.

They sit in silence while they wait, the fatigue from life on the run clearly settling onto everyone’s shoulders. Margaery closes her eyes and rolls her neck to stretch it out while Bronn yawns and rolls a cigarette. Sandor slouches in his chair, the back rung of it tipping the brim of his hat so the thing slides forward over his eyes. The faint clatter of dishes and mugs can be heard from the kitchen, which is separated from the dining room by the pantry, and then they can hear the murmur of soft feminine voices.

“Oh come on, mama, they’re not _so_ bad. You’ve seen worse when you used to help papa brand cattle.”

Margaery opens her eyes and pricks her ears, not daring to glance Sandor’s way.

“Yes, well. It makes sense on a cow’s behind, but a man’s face?”

Margaery slides a look over to Bronn who sits in the middle, and his jaw is working as he looks back to her with his dark, unreadable, coyote gaze. Instantly she feels bad for ribbing on the scarred old brute, but she can’t imagine it’s the first time he’s ever gotten such lackluster reviews. But then Bronn, true to his nature, cracks a grin and elbows his friend before tucking his rolled cigarette behind his ear.

“Listen, so the mother hen isn’t impressed. The thing to focus on, here, is that the pretty girl said they ain’t so bad.”

She leans back in her seat to catch Sandor’s expression, but his hat hides it more or less, and the only indication that he’s even heard any of it is a short, low grunt. He sits up quick enough, though, when the women return with their trays of fixings. His wary gaze is a back-and-forth dart from Sansa to just about anything else in the room he can find.

“Mrs. Stark, this pie is absolutely heaven-sent,” Margaery gushes truthfully after they’ve been served.

Her mouth salivates so much from the sweetness and delight that is true home-cooked food, that she’s worried she’ll drool like a dog. She swallows hastily before smiling at the lady of the house.

“I daresay my own mama couldn’t make something so delicious, though bless her heart she tried.”

Their hostess smiles, propriety the only thing keeping it from spreading into an out and out beam of pride.

“Yes, ma’am, it’s dreadful good,” Bronn says from Margaery’s left, right before he shovels another heaping forkful of still-warm pie in his mouth.

“Mmhmm,” grumbles Sandor around what looks to be half of his plate of food.

“Why thank you, but really, it’s nothing. Just a simple recipe passed down from Grandmother Tully.”

Margaery glances at Bronn’s pig-at-the-trough table manners and isn’t sure if she’s disgusted or jealous. Truth be told, she’s hungrier than a puppy at chuck wagon time, and just as etiquette keeps Mrs. Stark from bragging, it’s the only thing keeping her from lowering her head to her plate and gobbling everything up. She knows he’s a bandit and rude and the epitome of uncouth – or perhaps Sandor wins that particular blue ribbon – but still, they’re playing a part here, and he’s not doing that grand a job at it. Couldn’t he show a little restraint?

“Darling, slow down or you’ll give yourself indigestion,” she says sweetly, resting her hand on his forearm. “And we don’t want our hosts thinking we were born in a barn.”

Mrs. Stark has the grace to wave off Margaery’s concern as she laughs and cuts into her own slice of apple pie.

“Don’t you worry one bit, Mrs. Tyrell. My eldest son Robb – he and my youngest daughter are over at the Payne homestead helping birth a calf right now – he’s just as voracious an eater as your husband. I’ll do the right thing and take it as a compliment.”

“When will Robb be back? Sometime tonight, I reckon?” Sansa asks after dabbing her mouth daintily with a napkin.

“I would assume so. Podrick’s uncle isn’t much help anymore, not in his old age, but the lad is a quick study and I’m sure between the three youngsters they’ll get the task done soon enough,” she says, taking a sip of coffee before she sets it down and smiles in turn to her three guests. “Now, about your stay. We currently have a long-term boarder taking up one room, but there are still two rooms available. Do you know about how long you’ll be staying with us?”

Bronn and Margaery exchange a look, his usually unreadable expression peppered with questions. She gives him the faintest nod as if she’s accepting the reins of a runaway stagecoach, smiles and turns back to Mrs. Stark.

“I confess to still being rather shaken up from our experience, so the idea of being able to rest a few days is rather appealing. Is there any limit to how long we can hang up our hats?”

The screen door squeaks violently and the front door bangs open all of a sudden as the boy Rickon comes barreling in, making not only Margaery jump but the two men as well. Good, she thinks. That only adds to the illusion that we’re rattled from phantom highway robbers.

Catelyn gives her youngest boy a stern look before turning with a smile.

“Not at all,” she replies.

“So long as the money’s comin’, the guests can stay, right, ma?” Rickon says as he reaches over his sister’s shoulder to scoop the rest of her pie off her plate.

“Rickon!” Catelyn and Sansa gasp in unison.

Sandor throws his head back and laughs so hard his hat falls off.

 

After a tour of the house that seemed to take a goddamn century and a deliciously sedating supper of ham, biscuits and peas, Bronn is finally released from the torturous trap of feigned polite interest and free to step outside and smoke. He closes the wooden door but lets the screen stay open as he stands on the porch and takes the cigarette from behind his ear.

Sandor’s already there, the bottle of whiskey at his feet, his big frame like an enormous sack of potatoes rocking itself in one of the many rocking chairs. Bronn strikes a match, cups his hand around it as he inhales and blows the smoke out towards the dusk-draped yard. Sandor yawns and looks over at Bronn.

“Where’s that wife of yours, hmm? Telling everyone we’re kings and queens of Timbuktu?”

Bronn snorts a laugh, stretches his back and scratches his ass before ambling over to sit in the rocker next to Sandor. Lord do his muscles ache.

“Sansa’s got her oohing and aahing over a new cast iron tub. I reckon she’ll be in there all night, which is unfortunate for me because a hot soak doesn’t sound half bad.”

“You ain’t never had one. Ignorance is bliss, as they say,” he grunts, leaning down to snatch up the bottle of liquor.

“True. But knowledge is power,” Bronn grins. “You’re just saying that ‘cause there ain’t no tub in this world big enough to fit you.”

Sandor rolls his eyes though there’s the slightest of chuckles before he takes a deep swig of whiskey.

“Hey, fetch me that bottle of oh-be-joyful, now, and let me bend an elbow with you, brother,” Bronn says.

They drink together and rock together, complain of aching joints and sore asses and talk of how good a real McCoy bed will feel, watch the moon rise and the stars twinkle in the sky. It’s dark out, almost pitch without the sun in the sky and with only a few hurricane lamps lit inside. There’s the commotion indoors that’s typical of a house with a large brood in it, though they have yet to meet the man of the house, Robb, and his sister, a woman of 18 named Arya according to Sansa’s side of the conversation over dinner. Young master Rickon, and even his more reserved brother Bran, are more than enough to fill the house with racket. And then there’s the bloom of ladies’ voices, softer things that run like creek water under a layer of ice. Their inclusion seems to rouse both men from their musings, though in entirely different ways.

“There’s only two rooms available between the three of us,” Sandor says.

Bronn chuckles as he draws on his cigarette.

“Yeah, I know, I was on the same tour you was on. What of it?”

“Well, speaking of knowledge being power, you’ll be powerful-informed of all that woman’s got to offer, with you two sharing a bed.”

Now he rolls his eyes.

“You still worried about me losing my head over a woman? You of all people, who couldn’t stop staring at a certain redhaired beauty all night over supper?”

Sandor’s turn to roll his eyes. Bronn laughs outright. The only thing stranger than seeing Sandor so starry-eyed over a woman was that Sansa didn’t seem disturbed or frightened of him, at least not on the outside. If she was bothered, she’s one hell of an actress, on par with Margaery herself. Though Bronn has to wonder just how many strapping men of Sandor’s size she’s ever seen in such a small town. He reckons he’d be fascinated too, had he not spent most of his years with the scarred man.

“I wasn’t—”

“Oh, throw up the sponge, Clegane. There ain’t nothing wrong with admitting that she’s pretty. A blind man with no tongue in his mouth could tell you that.”

“Too pretty for the likes of me,” he mutters into the bottle before taking another swig.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t look,” Bronn says, gazing at the ember of his cigarette before pulling on it again.

“Ain’t no point to it,” Sandor sighs.

“Ain’t no point to a hot bath, but that doesn’t make it less a pleasure.”

“Hmmph.”

There is the click of the latch that make both men turn towards the front door where Margaery and Sansa stand, each with a steaming cup of tea. Sansa is still in her clothes from before, but Margaery is in something altogether different, a dark blue soft-looking dressing gown with a belt around her waist, so long it covers her feet. It’s clearly intended as something to be worn in an informal setting such as theirs, but with the way her brushed hair glitters in the soft light streaming out through the open doorway, and how the dark of the gown further emphasizes the pale of her skin, she damn near looks regal.

“I told you they’d be out here,” Margaery smiles to Sansa before looking back to Bronn, and then the bottle that’s been passed between them. She arches a brow. “We were bringing you boys something warm for a night cap but I see you’ve settled on taking another path to slumber."

Bronn grins and shrugs.

“You took too long, I reckon.”

Margaery arches a brow but smiles just the same, taking a sip from the mug she’s holding.

“No matter. I’ll commandeer it for myself.”

Bronn chuckles but then he frowns at her.

“Although you didn’t take as long as I figured, what with you going on and on about bathing and hotel-like amenities, my dear.”

Sansa dips her head and looks sheepish.

“It’s a nice big tub, yes, but it does take a while to fill with hot water from the stove. The water cooled considerably and after not too long a time.”

She looks down at the cup of tea in her hands and then cautiously up and over at Sandor.

“Did- would you like some tea?”

Sandor scoffs.

“Do I look like a feeble old grandmother to you?”

Bronn winces slightly, almost shakes his head considering they were _just_ discussing his righthand man’s infatuation. He risks a glance to the women who are still standing rooted to the spot, Margaery glaring daggers so hard at Sandor it’s a surprise the man is still alive, and Sansa, who is staring down at the offending drink in her hands. He can’t tell from the lack of light, but Bronn reckons she’s beet red from embarrassment.

There is a sigh of resignation from his left, and Bronn turns in time to see Sandor heave and rock himself to his feet. He thrusts the bottle of rye into Bronn’s chest as he crosses the porch to stand awkwardly with the ladies.

“Don’t take on, now, Miss Stark, I didn’t mean nothin’ by that. Tea sounds, uh, tea sounds good,” he says, glancing back Bronn with a one-shouldered shrug and a bewildered look on his face.

“Are you sure? I- I didn’t mean to presume, Mr. Tyrell.”

Sandor waves her off grumpily.

“You did no such thing.”

“So long as you’re sure,” she says with a shy smile.

Bronn catches Margaery’s gleeful smile and gaze his way, and he very nearly laughs. As persnickety and high-falutin’ as she can be, there’s clearly a soft side to the madam. Huh, he thinks. I damn near forgot she runs a brothel, she’s so good at this play-acting. Maybe I ain’t so bad at it, neither.

“Sure I’m sure,” Sandor says.

Sansa’s smile broadens into a more confident one.

“All right, then, would you like one lump or two?”

“Lump?”

Now she laughs.

“Lump of sugar. Come with me, I’ll show you how to doctor it up. I myself add three sometimes when no one is looking. There’s some cream in the larder, too, if you’d like.”

Bronn and Margaery gaze at each other once the unlikely pair of new friends disappears inside the big house, and once the door closes and they’re more or less immersed in the darkness, they both burst out laughing.

“I don’t think I can imagine anything funnier or more out of place than that big old bandit sipping tea out of fine china,” she says with the shake of her head.

“No, I don’t reckon I have the imagination or creativity for it. Let’s just hope he doesn’t muck it up by way of callous conversation, not that he knows any other kind."

Margaery comes and sits down in Sandor’s old seat with a sigh, blows on her tea, sits back and rocks. Glances his way once, twice, three times before she sighs again.

“Oh come on now, you might as well pour me a tipple, now that you’re down a drinking partner.”

He laughs again, does as she asks by pouring a healthy finger or so of whiskey into her cooling tea. He corks the bottle and sets it down, goes about the task of rolling himself another smoke.

“Want me to roll you a cigarette too, while I’m at it?”

She wrinkles her nose.

“Thank you kindly, but no.”

He chuckles and lights up, and they sit and rock together in silence as they stare out into endless, depthless ink-black. Somewhere in the distance a pack of coyotes yip and yap at one another. Sandor’s words come back to him and he hums, glances at Margaery before taking a deep draw off his cigarette.

“You gonna make me sleep on the floor tonight or am I allowed to claim a sliver of that bed upstairs?” he asks quietly.

She chuckles and sips her tea, wincing only slightly from the added boost of flavor.

“I know my way around a man, Bronn. You so much as lay a finger on me and I’ll clobber you with a skillet.”

His turn to chuckle.

“That why your bag is so heavy? I figured it was full of jewels and furs and whatnot.”

Her expression flickers with apprehension, and she bites her lip and looks down at her tea a moment. He’s about to ask her what’s wrong when all of a sudden they hear voices off in the distance. He trains his eyes, squinting as if that makes a difference here in the near dark, but then he sees it, two bobbing lights like will-o’-the-wisps.

“You see that?” he whispers.

“Yes. Do you _hear_ that?”

It’s faint at first but eventually the burble and warble and deep bass of it iron out into a rollicking melody.

“Oh, I am a Texas cowboy, lighthearted, brave, and—” sings a man.

“You gotta change it to Arizona in order for it to make any sense,” a woman says.

“Fine then, stickler. Oh, I am an Ar’zona cowboy, lighthearted, brave, and free.”

“To roam the wide, wide prairie, ‘tis always joy to me.”

“Well now, Arya, if I gotta change it to Arizona then you gotta change prairie to desert.”

The singing and bickering continue until the pair approach close enough to see that the light comes from lanterns instead of fantastical creatures, and the glow cast from both bathe the tops of two horses’ heads in light, as well as the two arms and hands that are holding them out.

“'Arya,' hmm? The prodigal son and daughter must be returning,” Margaery murmurs.

Bronn chuckles.

“I reckon so.”

“D’you hear that, Robb? Who was that?”

“Hello there!” the man named Robb shouts. “Who’s that over there on my property?”

Bronn clears his throat and stands, offering Margaery his hand when she struggles to stand as well in her long robe with her tea in hand.

“I’m Bronn Bl- Bronn Tyrell, and this here is my uh, my wife, Margaery. We’re lodging here for the time being. You must be Robb Stark. Your mother mentioned that you and your sister were out helping a neighbor.”

The two of them dismount and lead their horses the steps of the porch, lifting their lanterns so they can both better see and be better seen.

Margaery gasps, inaudible to the two Starks standing a ways away, though it’s sharp and high enough in her throat to make Bronn glance at her with a frown.

“Evening Mr. Tyrell, Mrs. Tyrell. Sorry to come up on you so late, but you’ve got the right of it. Old Payne’s not too fit for birthing these days, but we did all right. This here is my sister Arya. We’ll just take the horses to the barn and then we’ll be right in.”

Bronn and Margaery stand there side by side, watching the retreat of the lanterns and listening as the two siblings trade lines of “The Jolly Cowboy.” Once they’re far enough away, Bronn turns to his so-called wife.

“What got into you? A rattlesnake sneak under that fancy dressing gown of yours?”

Margaery turns to him, and with the weak light streaming through the window behind them, he is just able to make out the look of abject horror on her face.

“No,” she whispers. “No, though that would be preferable, considering I know that man.”

“Who, Robb Stark?”

Bronn has half a mind to tell her that that whippersnapper is no man, and that the only man around is the one she’s looking at.

Margaery nods.

“Yes, I know him and I am positive he knows me.”

“How?”

Margaery groans and closes her eyes, drains her tea in one huge gulp that makes her grimace and shudder before she opens her eyes and gazes up at him.

“Where else? The Pink Parlour.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](https://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/187150966688/guns-hidden-under-our-petticoats-chapter)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of departure from my usual chapter structure of POV 1/POV 2/POV 1 but it got too damn long. So I decided to discipline myself and just keep it at two POVs. Plus I can drag this SOB out for THAT. MUCH. LONGER. hahaha. ugh.

 

“Thank you so much for coming out with me so early today,” Margaery says fondly. “I was prepared for a nice breakfast and a morning in front of a cozy fire, but then that Robb Stark came thundering downstairs and I had nowhere to hide. So here we are,” she finishes with a halfhearted sweep of her hand to the landscape around them.

It’s blustery and wind-whippy cold out here, pale yellow and green grasses stuck in the limbo land between life and death. The sky has turned to the iron grey of impending winter storms, storms Margaery knows will carry bone-numbing rain, drops so needle thin they hit the skin like hail. It can’t shake a stick at a merry fire and a hot bowl of porridge, but it’s still far preferable than to be outed as a madam by the landlady’s son. She’s just gotten a taste of creature comforts once more. She’s not about to be ousted from her pen just yet.

“It just plumb isn’t fair, Bullseye. Me, homeless, out of a lucrative business, nothing to my name but a handful of dresses, and practically penniless,” she says, deciding to keep mum on the $500 cash in the bottom of her bag, not that Bullseye has any reason or means to sing like a canary.

“Then I get whisked off by your good-for-nothing owner,” she huffs, twitching the reins to lead Bullseye a fraction closer towards home. “Not meaning any offense to you, I’m sure you’re a wonderful horse.”

The horse snorts by means of reply, snips at a passing piece of half-dead grass.

Margaery smiles despite herself and gives him a pat on his roan neck.

“And that’s just the start of it all. I almost got murdered,  _twice,_ then got chased through town, and  _now,_ just when I think I’m sitting pretty in high cotton, turns out the one kind person in town has a son who could pick me out of crowd, easy as pie.”

A whicker and flick of a horse’s tail, the indignant toss of a glossy, ruddy mane.

“That’s just what I said! As if I needed something  _else_ to go wrong in my life,” she says, tone of voice wistful and small out here in the great wide nothingness of desert flora and fauna. “Granny always did talk about the wheel of fortune spinning like a top, I just had no inkling it could turn thatfast and loose on  _me_.”

Now the only reply her companion offers is another snort before her steed pauses his ambling to relieve himself on a patch of dead grass, as good a signal as any that their conversation has ended. Margie sighs.

“Well. There’s no doubting you’re Bronn’s, Bullseye, that’s for certain,” she says with a chuckle as she gives the creature another pat. “Although you’re a  _much_  better listener.”

They plod along the perimeter of the sprawling ranch, Margaery keeping a keen eye trained on the cluster of buildings where she last saw Robb Stark fiddling around with lord knows what kind of farming equipment. The only true splashes of brightness around the place come from where Mrs. Stark is hanging her washing between the house and the barn: cobalt and cherry red ginghams, ruddy rich ochre trousers, cottons and silks and linens in various other shades of faded comfort.

There’s a sudden pang in her heart at the sight of it, the motions of maternity that she hasn’t experienced since her mama died too young. Granny’s head was always too full of business for such domesticity, not that Margaery ever much minded until now.

“You never know what you have until it’s snatched away, Bullseye,” she murmurs with another pat to the roan’s neck, his thick winter coat softer than she ever reckoned. “Not that _you_ need to worry, so long as you have some oats, hmm?”

Eventually she sees a man who she presumes is Robb head off to the fields on the other side of the barn, and once he disappears over the tumble of low hills, she considers herself safe enough to head back to the warmth of indoors. But if she thinks she’ll be alone by the time she reaches the barn, she’s sorely mistaken. Or, rather, amusedly mistaken, once she picks up on the sound of a voice and the subject matter at hand.

“I know it ain’t ideal, brother, but it’s put a roof over our heads for now. Still, I’d rather there be less womenfolk around. Make me nervous, they do. ‘Specially that girl with the hair,” he mutters with the clearing of his throat. “Ain’t lawful, bein’ that pretty.”

Voice like the scratch of unfinished wood on a piece of slate. Sandor, then.

Margaery smiles to herself, halfway to a chuckle before she has the quick thinking to keep quiet. She’s never heard Sandor speak so frankly before, especially about such a soft topic of conversation. Womenfolk. She reckoned the fairer sex irritated him, not made him nervous. How precious, she thinks. But then she wonders, since when do outlaw men sit around and talk about women like this? Margaery wonders if they’re sitting around quilting, while they’re at it.

“Now, now, you jackass, stand still. Them hooves of yours ain’t gonna pick themselves clean.”

Aha! Apparently, she’s not the only one unloading her personal conundrums to a four-legged animal, this morning. She has half a mind to stick around and eavesdrop, since she was raised on fundamentals such as ‘knowledge is power,’ but there’s something too vulnerable about listening to a great big old brute bemoan the bewitchment of auburn hair for her to stomach.

Plus, it’s all fairly useless information, unless she’s bored one afternoon and looking for amusement.

Margaery nudges Bullseye back into a walk and steers him around the corner of the barn, clucking her tongue loud enough to alert Sandor of her presence. It works, and he startles only slightly at her sudden appearance. She flashes him a smile so bright it could be powered by that newfangled electricity.

“Well, if we’re cleaning horses’ hooves, then I have shown up just at the right time,” she says, chipper as a songbird.

Sandor’s eyes widen, perhaps in a moment of wild panic over how much  _else_ Margaery might have heard, but he recovers quickly enough, capping his thick black eyebrows firmly over his steely gaze. Somehow he manages to roll his eyes, even under such a thunderous frown.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he grumbles, returning attention to his horse.

“The cat in question being your boss, yes,” Margaery sniffs as she dismounts, dragging the reins over Bullseye’s head to lead him back to his stall.

“Wherever in hell  _he_ might be.”

“Last I left him, taking a bath, if you can believe it,” she says as she uses her fingers to comb through the tangles in Bullseye’s mane.

She laughs when Sandor boggles at her.

“I would give it a try, if I were you,” she says. “There’s nothing finer.”

“Finer than what?” says a dulcet voice from behind her.

Margaery doesn’t need to turn to know who it is, not with the flashflood change in Sandor’s expression. But she does so anyways, smiling her greeting.

Sansa stands there with her hair all but undone, save for two braids at her temples that convene at the back of her head to keep her hair from her face. She’s a fluttering pop of color in a cotton dress the color of a summertime sky and a loosely crocheted cream shawl. Windswept and lovely, holding out a checkered napkin with four squares of steaming cornbread. Margaery can imagine what’s going through Sandor’s head right now.

“Why, Sansa, look at you! Prettier than a picture, I wager, especially on such an ugly day.”

Sansa beams.

“Why thank you, Mrs. Tyrell, that’s awfully kind of you, considering I just got out of a miserably hot kitchen. I feel an unkempt mess,” she says sweetly.

A shy glance over at Sandor. The attempt to stack all four pieces of cornbread in one hand, presumably so she can adjust her hair, before she gives up and simply cradles the baked goods closer to her aproned chest.

“You know, I was just telling Sandor here, there’s nothing finer than a good bath and being clean head to toe.”

Sansa brightens and instantly turns her attention to him. Relieved, perhaps, for an excuse to make small talk, all the while forgetting that she’s holding the quickest way to a man’s heart right there in her hands.

“Oh, I most certainly do agree! Ever since mama started taking in boarders and sprung for that tub, it’s been heaven on earth. I recommend it immensely. Although,” she says, with the prettiest little frown as she scrutinizes him, “I’m not sure. I can practically swim in the thing, but you’re just so  _big._ ”

“Christ almighty,” Sandor mutters.

It takes Sansa the longest out of them all to hear (or perhaps even fully comprehend) her own implications at such a seemingly innocuous statement. Margaery bites her lip and smiles, glances from a beet-red Sandor back to a beet-red Sansa. Both stare at the barn floor in mortified silence.

“I do declare, Sansa, is that  _freshly_ baked cornbread?” Margaery says.

Relief doesn’t begin to describe Sansa’s demeanor as she lifts her gaze from hay-strewn floor to fellow female. Almost immediately the blush fades and she’s smiling again as the young woman steps closer.

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact. I figured I would make everyone something to eat. Most everyone high-tailed it out of the house before mama and I could get anything going for breakfast. This was the quickest option. Oh, but I see Arya, Rickon, and Robb aren’t even here.”

Sansa glances around with a frown that is executed so perfectly that even Margaery is momentarily fooled into believing it’s genuine. But there’s a twitch of a smile right in the corner of her mouth that gives her away.

“I’m sure Sandor can help demolish all four squares, if you’ll let him,” Margaery says. “Isn’t that so, my dear brother?”

Sandor clears his throat like a buffalo.

“I reckon I could.”

Sansa’s little mouth-twitch broadens to a brilliant smile, proving Margaery right.

It was not disappointment to find a nearly empty barn.

It was delight.

Delight that is almost instantly ruined by the sudden arrival of Bronn.

“Where in tarnation is that woman of mine?” he bellows, heard before seen, crass before kind.

Margaery rolls her eyes and drops the reins in order to put her hands on her hips, acting every part the harried, hen-pecking wife, as she anticipates his arrival.

“I’m right in here,  _darling_ ,” she says testily, quickly rolling her eyes at Sansa, who glances in kind to Sandor with a giggle.

Bronn rounds the corner into the barn much the same way Margaery and Sansa did, though he’s carrying a rifle in his hands, in addition to the one slung across his back, instead of horse’s reins or baked goods as did the women. Lord, but it isn’t fair when a man knows he’s singular. All swagger and stride, easy grins with weather-beaten wrinkles that crease into dimples. In addition to the extra gun he’s got his trademark bandana round his neck and hat on his head, ready to ride, and he scans the barn until he claps his eyes on Margaery. He stops, gives her a pointed sort of look, before trying for charm with a grin.

“Sight for sore eyes,” he says before he tips his head to the side, towards the fields between Winterfell Ranch and their neighbors.

“Hold up a moment there, brother,” Sandor interjects, rather hotly considering his expression heretofore was one of frozen horror. “That there’s my—”

“I was  _thinkin’_ ,” Bronn says with emphasis as he flicks his gaze at Sandor before looking back to Margaery, “that you might keep me company on an early morning hunt,” he says, hefting the extra rifle in his hands by way of explanation. “You always do bring me luck, darlin’.”

Margaery wrinkles her nose, tries not to laugh at _that_ falsehood.

“I just went for a ride and it’s awful chilly out today,” she starts.

Bronn gives a slight albeit firm shake of his head, just the once. Margaery frowns.

“Well then, at least see your husband off a little ways out. Arya just left to go fetch her brother back for an injured steer and I reckon this barn will be pretty crowded with you lingering.”

“Oh, that’s no concern at all,” Sansa says brightly, turning to regard Bronn with her hands extended. “See, I’ve brought enough cornbread for the three of you, and there’s plenty more in the kitchen for my brother and sister.”

“Well, on second thought,” Margaery says quickly, grasping Bullseye’s reins once more as she turns the horse to head back whence they came, “I have yet to work up an appetite worth of such delicious looking bread.”

Bronn nods curtly.

“Sound thinking. Although I myself have no such problem working up an appetite. Those  _do_ look mighty fine indeed,” he says, leaning towards Sansa with his hand outstretched.

“Don’t you dare,” Margaery snaps with a loud swatto Bronn’s knuckles.

 

“I’m tellin’ you, woman, you’d be better off just squaring up to Robb Stark and tellin- well,  _showing_ him who you are. Just once and for good, get it over and done with,” Bronn mutters, reins in his lap as he cups a hand around his cigarette in order to light it.

“Easy for  _you_ to say, now that I’ve provided you with a practically watertight alias, Mr. Tyrell,” Margaery says from where she rides beside him.

For the first time since he’s met her, they ride side by side instead of together as one, thanks to Sansa’s generous offering of her horse, Nan. On account of this, Bronn refuses to confess to himself two very conflicting emotions: one, that he rather likes being able to converse with her  _and_ see her; and two, that he rather misses the feel of her sitting behind him and holding onto him (though the last, he decides, can be chalked up to the added layer of warmth in this winter chill).

“Way I look at it, see, is that there is a mama’s boy, young Robb Stark. Maybe not when his pappy was alive, but I reckon it’s certain now that it’s just him and his ma ruling the roost. Last thing that whippersnapper is gonna do is tell his mama he’s been to a brothel just so she can box his ears.”

Margaery turns to look at him, and it’s longer than a glance and steady enough to draw his attention to her fox-bright eyes. She’s chewing on her lower lip with a frown of study on her face, and his gaze flickers down and up between the two expressions of confliction or thoughtfulness or both. Hell, knowing her as he has come to in such a short span of time, there’s probably a few other things going on over there as well. Bronn shrugs.

“S’true.”

“I know,” she says finally with a sigh, looking him over once more before she turns to gaze out ahead of the slow trail they’re blazing. “It just seems too easy. Too simple.”

Bronn laughs in earnest.

“Ma’am, one thing I figured you’d have learned by now is just how simple men are, at the end of a long day. You of all folks should know that. I don’t care how complicated you women like to make things.”

She hums, low in her throat but loud enough that he can hear.

“Well. I do know you men are simple to a fault.”

He chuckles and puffs on his cigarette.

“Or to your benefit, I wager.”

Now it’s her turn to laugh.

“A woman’s got to eat, after all.”

And that reminds him. Bronn stubs out his smoke on the heel of his boot and flicks it away.

“True. Come on, now, kick that nag into something quicker than a stumble, and let’s find us some grub we can take to Ma Stark as a sign of our appreciation. And, if her son _does_ see your face and remember you through the fog of satiation and inebriation, a sign of well-intended bribery.”

“I think you mean blackmail.”

Bronn shrugs. “Six of one, half dozen of another. Say, you know your way around a lever action?”

Her eyes widen only slightly in surprise, but she recovers easily enough.

“Why, yes, but I’ve never shot anything other than targets, and that was always under my pa’s watch. Long time ago, that,” she says.

While it isn’t the first time Bronn’s caught the faintest breath of sorrow on her tongue, it’s certainly the most wistful and far away. He clears his throat and dismisses the idle notion. Besides. At least she knows _her_ pappy.

“No time like the present to dust off the cobwebs, then. I don’t got any intention of being the sole provider in this here farcical union,” he says.

Bronn hands Sandor’s rifle over to her, both man and woman stretching and leaning towards each other in their respective saddles for the exchange. Once she’s put the strap over her shoulder according to his instruction, he jerks his head towards the southern slope of the hill they’re on.

They ride down towards a wide, shallow gully, choked with scraggly acacia and weather-beaten oak. He hopes it’s enough coverage to inspire some herd or covey to hunker down against the whip of wind and promise of rain or worse. Bronn slows their pace with a steady pullback on Bullseye’s reins in one hand and the waving gesture of his other to Margaery. When he stops and dismounts, she does the same, a slinking little thing with nary a rustle despite the long skirts she’s in.

The closer they creep the lower to ground they get until he stops them, a hundred paces away give or take, with his one knee in the dirt like he’s proposing marriage for true this go ‘round. Margaery follows suit in much the same pose as his, her elbow on her knee as she holds the rifle in prime position with its stock resting against her cheek. She keeps her eye trained on the scope Sandor had mounted way back in Jerome, just like any old seasoned cowboy. Bronn exhales a huff of amusement through his nostrils before he does the same as she, using his own scope in order to see if he can spy anything worth sinking his teeth into. The magnification isn’t much to shake a stick at, not on his budget, but it’s enough that he can pick up more than just the idle sway of branches.

Collared peccary, most like. Javelinas as the vaqueros call them. He isn’t positive but there’s enough of a musk in the air to pinpoint those hog-like critters as the likely culprits.

“Can you see anything,” he murmurs, voice just above a whisper, or perhaps just under it, like a linen sheet under a quilt and tucked in tight.

“No,” Margaery murmurs, soft as a lover’s kiss.

“Gonna make shooting practice a lot harder, ‘til you learn to look. Scan the underbrush and use your dang scope.”

“Who’d have thought you’d end up trusting me with a gun?”

He glances sidelong, half expecting another lecture, but he can see the smile she’s got pressed against the stock of Sandor’s rifle. He suppresses a chuckle.

“Now’s your chance to prove me a fool for doing so, I reckon.”

Not that she has much opportunity. Just at that moment there is a loud crack, the telltale sign of another gun discharging from somewhere on the other side of the gully. Bronn’s head rings from the zinging ricochet of the bullet as it glances off some rock somewhere, sight unseen.

Buzzing of his ears notwithstanding, several  _other_ things also happen at the same exact time.

First, Margaery screams like a stuck pig, the irony of such a reaction not lost on him.

Secondly, their side of the tree-fringe explodes, branches snapping and leaves bursting like sparks of TNT, as more than a dozen javelina come tearing out of the gully and up the slope towards them, wilder than mountain goats and just as ornery.

Thirdly (fourthly, fifthly, and sixthly too), Margaery screams again, and this time, with the onslaught of several cloven-footed, pig-snouted, terrified cantankerous critters making a musky beeline for the two of them, she flings Sandor’s lever action rifle to the left, falls back on her derriere, and covers her face with her hands, still screaming like a banshee.

All of that in as many seconds. All Bronn has time to do is toss his own gun to the other side, sit back on his own ass, and drag Margaery up into his arms as he simultaneously twists his body, hauling her up and over his legs and onto the other side of him, farthest he can get her from the peccaries. The wild beasts squeal and scramble their way up the slope just past Bronn and Margaery, leaving the two of them coughing and hacking in several clouds of dirt and the gamiest musk Bronn’s ever smelled outside of Tormund’s armpits during one of their whiskey-fueled tussles.

Bronn yanks his bandana up over his mouth with a wince of disgust, glances down to see how Margaery’s faring. Her head tosses and turns from side to side, a clenched fist pressed against her mouth, though she’s clearly still breathing through her nose, given how much oxygen she’s presently using in order to let loose every expletive she can think of.

“Goddamn son of a bitch, shit, fuck, _damn_ it all to hell, you bastards,” she wheezes beside him, her face streaked with coyote-colored dirt that turns to mud where her eyes water.

And then she gags on a sob, sputters so rough she can’t even take a breath to curse some more.

Instantly he realizes his mistake, and since he has no spare bandana, he simply bows his hatted head over Margaery’s face, doing his best to shield her from choking to death on grit and scent alike. For lack of any better idea, he wraps his arms around her head like she’s a bushel of ripe peaches (just to keep the rest of the dirt and silt and stink off the both of them, mind). She smells like rosewater and talcum and the underlayer of sweat, slathers of scent on scent, most of them too fine for the likes of his sniffer, though they are a welcome retreat from the stench of collared peccary and kicked up dirt that’s laid undisturbed for who knows how long.

“I have to wonder,” comes a tiny muffled voice from under his chin. “Did the pigs come kill me, or come to save me?”

Suddenly Bronn is acutely aware of how perhaps _he_ might smell, even after a quick splash in the washing basin earlier that morning. But still, that’s neither here nor there. Not after what just happened. He recoils from her, lets the dust clouds and javelina stink come claim her. She winces and flinches enough at that, and he’s expecting her to leap up like a mad wet cat, but then he’s shocked and alarmed and quite frankly terrified when he looks down at her with a frown to see that instead of fighting, she’s gone and surrendered to a big, wet, cry.

It stuns him, even tongue-ties him for a hot minute.

“A-are you all right there? Margie?”

She doesn’t answer, simply screws her eyes shut tight and, with one mighty heave of her chest, lets loose a high-pitched wail.

Bronn stares, goggles, ogles. Scoots back from her on all fours, kicking up more dirt until he plants himself back down on his ass. Still, she doesn’t move, even though all his scuffle dust-clouds head her way in the constant gusts of winter wind. Just lays there, blinking up at the iron grey sky, tears leaking down her temples into a scratchy patch of dead grass that’s currently standing in as her pillow.

Hastily he pulls the bandana off his face.

“Margie, come on, now, it’s just pigs. Hell, they ain’t even pigs, just desert versions of ‘em. Did you see the baby ones, they were- I mean, someone could call ‘em cuddly. I don’t _know_ anyone who would, but women like that sort of thing, don’t you? Uh, cuddly things? Margie?”

The only thing that earns him is a fistful of dirt chucked his way. Normally he’d be ticked, but what he’s staring at now is something he recognizes all too well. He’s seen it on the face of his men after a mission gone wrong; seen it in his own reflection from time to time; seen it on his mama’s face every damn day of her life.

Defeat.

Bronn might be an outlaw, but contrary to popular opinion, he isn’t a _complete_ son of a bitch. He knows defeat all too well, besides.

“Uh,” he tries out, remembering all the womenfolk in his life. Only a few come to mind, and even fewer mattered. “There, there?”

“Oh, would you just _stop it??_ ” she finally hiccups mid-wail. “Just, for once, _shut your goddamn mouth,_ or I’m going to sh-sh- _shut_ it f-f-for you,” she hitches, hitches, hitches, until she breaks free into another storm of sobs.

Bronn opens his mouth to protest but takes a quick inventory of all the words she’s just laid at his feet and thinks better of it. For some moments, they’re both silent. But then finally she groans like an old woman grateful to be finally dying. Hauls herself up into a sitting position, a few feet away and a few feet further down the slope than he. Sits there like a rancher bucked off a mule, forearms resting on her bent knees and head bowed in the space all four limbs provide.

And just seeing that makes him _powerful_ uncomfortable.

Nobody likes a crying woman, he consoles himself. Besides. She’s never cried like this. He’s seen the worst of what this woman’s been through. She’s tougher than a mule. But a goddamn herd of javelina is what does her in?

“Uh, here,” he says, holding out his bandana.

Women like gifts, right?

Margaery sighs raggedly like she’s got consumption, but in the end she takes the dusty old kerchief, though instead of using it she just turns it over and over in her hands, gazing down at it.

“Ever since I met you, my life has gone to hell in every handbasket woven this side of the Mississippi,” she says finally.

It’s the rainwater voice of exhausted surrender coming from her, _this_ woman of all people, and it’s that reason and that reason alone – so he swears to himself – that renders Bronn Blackwater plumb dumb. And so instead of complain, or argue, or defend himself, he simply sighs, picks his hat back up, and plunks it on his head. Rolls and lights himself a cigarette and, of all goddamn things, buckles down in order to listen to a woman complain. It’s not his first time, and he reckons like hell it will be his last.

“What I don’t understand, though,” she says finally with a glance his way, “is why you seem to be a big old part of all of this mess, and yet- yet every step I make, you’re the son of a gun who’s there to help me. You know what kind of dizzying realization that is for a woman left with nothing to realize?”

He stares at her through a squint and a frown. Margaery shakes her head and laughs.

“You’re the least trustworthy person I’ve ever met, and I own a _bordello,”_ she says with a weary shake of her head, all disbelief. “And y-you’re all I have out here. Wherever here is.”

She chuckles, wipes her dirty face with the back of her hand.

“And isn’t that the joke,” she sighs. “Here we are in Hereford.”

Bronn scoffs and sucks another drag from his cigarette. Wordlessly Margaery scoots closer to him, plucks the smoke from his mouth, and sucks in a draw that would make the average man’s eyes cross. Expertly she inhales, holds it in, and exhales with only the daintiest of coughs.

He blinks in confusion.

“You know what, miss Margie, I may have complicated your life a fair bit, and I’ll own up to that. But I also saved your goddamn life, and I never would have been there had I not temporarily intervened in your life. Ain’t that enough to garner a thimbleful of trust out of you?”

She has the grace to give him back his cigarette and look away, but enough gumption, however feeble, to do more than keep her mouth shut.

“That isn’t even my name,” she mutters.

“And _you_ , hell,” he says, gesturing towards her with his smoke, the newest subject of his surprise when it comes to her. “You, how am _I_ to trust _you_? You who say one thing and do another, who lies through her teeth easier than a hen lays eggs, you who acts like you don’t smoke and then sucks down a mouthful of smoke like it’s sarsaparilla!”

She rounds on him then.

“I didn’t tell a soul about you when I was in town. I could have gone straight to the sheriff and built myself a new business with the reward money, couldn’t I’ve? I could have cheered for your hanging and danced on your grave in red stockings. Couldn’t I’ve? Hmm?”

Bronn shrugs finally. It’s his turn to look away.

“Maybe. Yes. I mean, _maybe,_ I reckon.”

“Yes, well. There it is then,” she sighs, looking down at his bandana before sighing again as she wipes her face with it.

"Come on, now, I gave you a gun. That's something, ain't it?"

She laughs weakly and shrugs back at him.

“Yes. Yes, you did. I suppose you’re all I have. And- and I _want_ to be able to trust you, honestly, I do, because I’ve never felt so _alone,_ and I’m not _used_ to being alone, not truly. And- and I think I can maybe- I mean, I don’t _think_ you would let any harm come to me if I—”

“If you what?” he interrupts quickly, sharply.

Perhaps too quickish sharpish, considering the suddenly wary look she gives him, but he can’t help himself. He’s gotten run out of town and shot at and nearly stampeded by a herd of goddamn desert hogs, thanks to her, and if she’s got some scheme up her sleeve that has him in the front goddamn lines again, so help him, lord, the answer is a big fat no.

“If- well, if I, um, if I- wait, Bronn, who _is_ that?” she says, her tear-soaked gaze shifting from his face to somewhere off behind him.

“The devil himself, at this goddamn point,” Bronn mutters through another draw off his smoke. “Probably another Stark, given how many of them they number,” he says, turning to look at where Margaery points.

Quicker than a horned toad, she’s scooted up behind him, arm a vise of fear around his middle, her chin a sharp dig in his shoulder as she huddles up behind him.

“That’s not a Stark I recognize,” she whispers of the man in question.

And it’s true. It’s no Stark he recognizes either, considering this man is neither tall like Robb nor ginger-haired like damn near the whole lot. Two quick glances to either side of him and Margie prove the guns are too far away to lunge for without likelihood of being shot dead in the attempt. Doesn’t make Bronn feel any better, either, when he realizes the man loping towards them on horseback is leading Bullseye and Nan by their reins as he trots towards them.

Christ almighty, you dumb sonuvabitch, he thinks with a shake of his head. You forgot the goddamn horses.

Maybe he _has_ been mooning.

“Y’all okay down there?” the man shouts. “I was hunting javelina and I heard a scream after I took aim and fired. I didn’t hit nobody, did I?”

“It could be a trap,” Margaery hisses.

“Arya? Arya, that ain’t you, is it? I figured maybe you stole Nan from Sansa, though I can’t reckon why. You always stole the fastest horses from my uncle.”

Bronn can feel the fear leave Margaery’s body at the same time it leaves his. Two flags in a tempest that’s finally petered out, sagging with the weight of blessedly still air and relief.

“Must be their neighbor,” Bronn mutters. “Some other do-gooder who don’t know any better than to shout personal business across the desert,” he adds, giving her a look over his shoulder, where she’s still perched like a ground squirrel, bright eyes wide, still scared, still half-smeared with mud made from tears. “You all right?”

Margaery nods. Bronn raises his eyebrows in question. She swallows, hiccups again, gives his middle another squeeze, and nods one more time. Bronn stares her down, but she is unwavering. Finally he nods back.

“Yeah, we’re fine,” he finally hollers before turning around to face the newcomer.

Newcomer is on his horse, hands full of _their_ horses, and only five paces away.

“Jesus Christ, you’re sneaky,” Bronn says after nearly jumping clean out of his skin, though he can likely blame that bullet ricochet on his lack of awareness.

The man smiles, a big wide affable beam like it came from the sun itself. Bronn resists rolling his eyes.

“You tend to become so, living next to Arya and Rickon. You two must be the new boarders over there,” he says, and then he laughs when he must see Bronn’s look of confusion. “Sorry, I was over earlier, helping Arya hunt down a hurt steer. She told me all about you two. You must be the Tyrells. I’m Podrick Payne. Can I help you two to your feet? I wager these horses are yours.”

It’s only after more awkward introductions, after helping a _very_ weary Margaery – _and this here’s my uh, my wife –_ back into her saddle, after plodding back towards Winterfell with a very chatty and very amiable young Podrick Payne, only after all that does Bronn register that when he bent his head over hers to block out the dust, Margaery clung to him for dear life, and that it is now so natural an occurrence that he didn’t even notice.


End file.
